Congratulations to ESPN’s crown jewel. I will have more tomorrow on what OTL has meant to the network.

Here is the rundown for Tuesday’s show.

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ESPN’s award-winning Outside the Lines will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a primetime special on Tuesday, July 7(ESPN, 7 p.m. ET).

The one-hour show will recognize television’s pioneering investigative sports news program, which has examined off-the-field events that have impacted what happens on the field since its May 7, 1990 debut. Bob Ley will be in his familiar host’s chair as he has been since OTL’s first show more than a quarter century ago. He will interview guests pertinent to the series, introduce some of its most impactful pieces and provide a commentary reflecting on his time as the face of ESPN’s journalism.

“I would like congratulate Bob Ley — and the whole team — on 25 spectacular years of OTL,” said ESPN President John Skipper. “He has established himself as nothing less than the Walter Cronkite of sports journalism, clearly the leading sports news host of the past quarter century. The range and quickness of his intellect, his ever-present curiosity and his persistent search for truth distinguish his work for ESPN and makes OTL a must watch.”

Ley, who joined ESPN as a SportsCenter anchor on its third day of operation (September 9, 1979), recently signed a contract extension.

“It’s been a remarkable journey for Outside the Lines, from a monthly program 25 years ago, to a daily presence, on TV and digitally,” Ley said. “I’m so proud to work with the smartest and most creative individuals in journalism who bring OTL its edge and distinctive style. We’re all looking forward to many more years.”

“Looking back through 25 years of Outside the Lines has reminded us of the tenacity of our producers and correspondents in their efforts to report the stories that no one else in our industry was covering,” said ESPN Vice President of SportsCenter & News, Storytelling Units Craig Lazarus. “It was groundbreaking reporting that still holds up today. OTL has set the standard for enterprise and investigative sports journalism for the past quarter century and continues to be an important part of our commitment to reporting all issues, on the field and off.”

The July 7 show will feature:

John Barr’s recent interview with former Rutgers men’s basketball coach Mike Rice, and an in-studio discussion with Barr who originally reported on then-coach Rice physically and verbally demeaning his players. (Note: Barr’s full story will premiere on Sunday’s Outside the Lines at 9 a.m. on ESPN. It will re-air Tuesday at2:30 p.m.)

An update on Tom Farrey’s September 2012 piece on former Pop Warner standout Donovan Hill, whosuffered a spinal fracture while making the type of head-first tackle he says was encouraged by his youth coaches. Farrey, whose Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children is recognized as a leading journalistic work on modern youth sports, joins Ley for an in-studio discussion.

A look back at OTL’s historical coverage of football concussions with Mark Fainaru-Wada (he and his brother Steve Fainaru co-authored League of Denial: The NFL, Concussions and the Battle for Truthcomplementing ESPN’s coverage of the subject). He joins Ley for a discussion as well.

A piece about race in sports and an in-studio interview with ESPN commentator and PTI co-host Michael Wilbon.

A look at OTL’s coverage of sexual assaults through the years.

Memorable moments from the past 25 years.

OTL Recognized:

The award-winning OTL has evolved from periodic specials to a six-days-a-week series (Sunday –Friday) which has captured 11 Sports Emmy Awards and some of most coveted prizes in TV journalism; including a recent duPont Award and Peabody Award, as well as multiple Edward R. Murrow Awards, including one in video investigative reporting – a first for a sports entry. This year alone, OTL was honored with a National Headliner Award first place in broadcast/cable news magazine, a Gracie Award, first prize in broadcast investigative reporting in the National Awards for Education Reporting, Mental Health America’s 2015 Media Award, and the Grand Award from the NY Festivals Television and Film Awards.

Nice to see the women get their due. Carli Lloyd gets the hometown treatment in the Newark Star-Ledger.

Spanning the globe to bring you the constant variety of sports media:

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Keith Olbermann and ESPN may be parting ways, according to Marisa Guthrie of the Hollywood Reporter. However, I am not buying that it is over a supposed demand by ESPN that Olbermann stop doing his commentaries on his show.

Guthrie writes:

ESPN and Keith Olbermann may be headed toward a tough negotiation to keep the outspoken host on the sports network. Sources tell The Hollywood Reporter that ESPN has floated a highly problematic condition for an extension of Olbermann’s initial two-year deal: that he cease engaging in “commentary” on his ESPN2 program.

The issue likely stems from Olbermann’s critical assessment of the NFL’s handling of the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal that exploded last summer when an elevator video of Rice punching then-fiancee Janay Palmer in the face surfaced after the NFL had imposed a slap-on-the-wrist, two-game suspension on the Baltimore Ravens star running back. Olbermann repeatedly hammered NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. In a lengthy commentary at the top of his Aug. 1 broadcast, he called on the commissioner to “resign” after what Olbermann described as a “weak, damaging and almost enabling reaction” to the episode.

I would be shocked if that was the reason. ESPN would get killed with that kind of request. Olbermann should shout it from the rooftops.

Besides, Olbermann’s entire show is a commentary. You can’t put a muzzle on him.

I suspect this is the real reason. Writes Guthrie:

And there are signs that ESPN’s spending may need to be reined in. Though ESPN parent Disney realized gains in second-quarter earnings, operating income at Disney media networks — which includes ABC, ESPN and the company’s kid-targeted cable channels — fell 2 percent due to rising programming and production costs at ESPN.

Right, it’s about money, friends. Olbermann makes a lot of it, and ESPN might not be willing to pay.

I am a big Olbermann fan. Here’s hoping it works out for him at ESPN.

Fox defends its U.S. Open coverage. John Ourand and John Lombardo report in Sports Business Daily.

In their first public comments since the U.S. Open, Fox Sports and U.S. Golf Association executives expressed confidence that Fox’s production will improve at next year’s U.S. Open in Oakmont, Pa. John Entz, Fox Sports president of production and executive producer, acknowledged some mistakes in an exclusive interview with SportsBusiness Journal but said he was pleased overall with how Fox produced the tournament.

“We had 700 people working together for the first time,” Entz said. “As any rational person could imagine, there’s going to be some bumps in the road when that happens, especially when your first true show is a show that size. You’re going to have a steep learning curve.”

USGA executive Sarah Hirshland said the association was happy with the telecast, which averaged 3.5 million viewers over four days, including a Sunday prime-time average of 8.7 million viewers, marking Fox’s largest Sunday night audience since an NFL playoff game in early January. Hirshland said she noticed improvements in production quality from Thursday’s opening round to Sunday’s finale.

“Certainly there is always room to get better,” said Hirshland, USGA’s senior managing director of business affairs. “We are pleased to be going on the air yet again with them for the U.S. Senior Open [this past weekend] and the Women’s Open [next month]. That kind of repetition and experience, with all of us working together, will continue to make us better.”

The Sports Journalism Institute at Columbia published an extensive edition on the Associated Press Sports Editors convention.

Tom Verducci talks about the craft with Richard Deitsch in a SI Media podcast.

Long-time Associated Press sports editor Terry Taylor gets her turn in the “Still No Cheering in the Press Box” series by the Povich Center for Sports Journalism.

Jessie Karangu of the Povich Center interviews Tim Brandt on his long career reporting on sports in Washington D.C.

In case you haven’t heard, here is Colin Cowherd’s interview with Jim Harbaugh Wednesday.

I don’t think I ever listened to a worse interview by a big-time college football or basketball coach. Harbaugh not only wasted a huge opportunity to sell what he is doing at Michigan on a national radio platform, he sounded like an idiot with his non-answers to softball questions.

If I’m Michigan, Harbaugh is getting 24/7 lessons in PR, beginning today. He needs to do much, much better. College football isn’t the NFL, coach.

Nice touch by MLB Network. Admit it, you have missed Tim McCarver. It will be good to hear him again.

The official release:

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Hall of Fame award-winning broadcaster Tim McCarver will join MLB Network’s Bob Costas to call the MLB Network Showcase telecast of the San Diego Padres at St. Louis Cardinals this Thursday, July 2 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Though they’ve each called MLB games over the last four decades, July 2 will mark the first time that Costas and McCarver will call a game together since two “Game of the Week” broadcasts on NBC in 1980, and it will be the first national MLB game McCarver will call since the 2013 World Series.

Over the last 35 years, there are only four World Series – 2014, 1983, 1981 and 1980 – in which neither Costas nor McCarver were part of the broadcast team. McCarver, who most recently spent 18 years as the lead MLB analyst at FOX, has called baseball games for four national U.S. TV networks, including 24 World Series and 20 All-Star Games. McCarver’s guest analyst role on MLB Network Showcase this week is in addition to his current work as an analyst on St. Louis Cardinals game telecasts for FOX Sports Midwest.

“Over the past few years, we’ve looked for opportunities for interesting announcer pairings for the sheer enjoyment of it,” said Costas. “A few years ago, I did a game with my friend Al Michaels; last year it was Bob Uecker; this time, Tim McCarver. He and I have been friends for 35 years, dating to the two games we did together on NBC in 1980. While our paths have crossed zillions of times since then, and we’ve each worked too many games to count, this will be the first time we’ve worked together since. Let’s hope we’ve each learned a few things in the meantime.”

“One of the expressions that I abhor in baseball is ‘at this pace,’ and yet, at this pace, Bob and I will work together every 35 years,” said McCarver. “I’m delighted to be with Bob again, if only for one game.”

The remaining MLB Network Showcase games in July will feature the New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox onFriday, July 10, the NL West-leading Los Angeles Dodgers at NL East first-place Washington Nationals on Friday, July 17, and the Dodgers at New York Mets on Thursday, July 23. Games will be blacked out in each club’s home television territory unless otherwise announced. Viewers in areas subject to blackouts will be provided with an alternate game telecast or other programming. MLB Network’s complete programming lineup is available here.

I have no desire, nor the courage, to stand in the batter’s box to see what it is like to face a Randy Johnson fastball. I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t see anything. Not even the blur of the ball going past me.

However, I would like to get an up close view of a knuckleball. I have been watching baseball for more years than I care to admit, and I still don’t know exactly what it does.

My old Chicago Tribune colleague, Lew Freedman, examines the baffler in a new book, “Knuckleball: The History of the Unhittable Pitch.”

It is a fun read, especially for old Chicago White Sox fans like me who grew up watching Hall of Famer Hoyt Wilhelm and workhorse Wilbur Wood.

Here is my Q/A with Lew:

What was the motivation to do this book?

If there was one thing that stands out as a genesis idea for a knuckleball book it relates to Dan Boone, the former Alaska Baseball League player I knew up north during his second time around in the summer league that is mostly for college players.

Dan had a brief stay in the majors, but came back to Alaska to pitch again when he was much older. The sight of the slightly built pitcher baffling college stars with his knuckler always stuck with me. They would swing and miss by a foot. None of them had seen a knuckler while standing in the batter’s box and didn’t know how to handle it.

What stuck out for you in learning about the knuckleball?

Although deep down I already knew this, the thing that I learned while talking to many of the best knuckleball pitchers of all time was that not even they dare to say that they “mastered” the pitch. It was as if the knuckler possessed super magical powers that they could never be sure to control no matter how long they had been throwing it.

Is it a coincidence that the White Sox have had so many knuckleball pitchers?

To some extent, if you go way back and include Eddie Cicotte and Ted Lyons, it IS a coincidence that the White Sox had so many good knuckleball pitchers. But I think it is less coincidence in the latter years when Hoyt Wilhelm, Eddie Fisher and Wilbur Wood were around.

I believe that is more attributable to a management team recognizing Wilhelm’s worth and taking on additional knuckleballers based on his success, and also his willingness to work with other users of the pitch.

Who were some of your favorite interviews for the book? 

Although everyone that I spoke with for the knuckleball book was a pleasure to deal with and provided illuminating information, visiting with Phil Niekro in the Atlanta area was the highlight interview for the book. I had always admired him from afar and we had never met. Plus, a little thing, is that he and I share the unusual birthday of April 1. I started calling him Dr. Phil for his willingness to help diagnose woes other knuckleball pitchers were suffering.

Also, I have always had a good time interviewing Wilbur Wood, someone I have spoken to several times. And the interview with Dan Boone, talking to him for the first time in many years, was a fun one, partially because of his comments on actually being related to the real Daniel Boone like a million generations removed.

In your view, which pitcher had the best knuckleball?

Since I did not witness all of the knuckleball throwers in person it is tough to choose a best knuckleball thrower of all time. By the preponderance of the evidence I go with Phil Niekro because he won 318 games. Phil goes with Hoyt Wilhelm. They both ended up in the Hall of Fame, so surely a case could be made for both.

What is the future of the pitch in the modern game? Will there always be knuckleball pitchers?

I, and all knuckleball users, would like to think that the pitch will be around forever, but it is perilously close to extinction at the Major League level right now. We have R.A. Dickey of the Blue Jays as the flag bearer, but he is 40 years old (even if that means as a knuckleball thrower he may be seven years from retirement), and we have the Boston Red Sox’s Stephen Wright. There is definitely a need for fresh blood.

Did you ever get an up close at a knuckleball?

I did not get a up close look at a knuckler, any closer than a pitcher throwing it normally, but did go over grips with Phil Niekro.

This is how adults act.

Bob Costas knew he went too far in comments about Cubs reliever Pedro Strop during Friday’s St. Louis-Chicago game on MLB Network.

In case you missed it, Costas had this to say about Strop’s terrible outing as he was leaving the mound.

“Strop is on his way out, pointing toward the heavens. We can only ask, or wonder, that he is asking some departed relative for forgiveness for this atrocious performance.”

The Chicago Tribune’s Mark Gonzales reports Strop said he points to the sky after an outing to “always thank God for the opportunity. It’s nothing to do with the performance.”

Saturday, Costas told Daniel Popper of the New York Daily News that he was way off-base with that remark. He said he “winced” when he watched the replay.

“The tone of it was not what I intended. I intended it as a kind of sarcastic comment about this overall thing where everybody seems to be pointing toward the heavens for every accomplishment, large and small, or even for no accomplishment at all,” Costas said. “I inadvertently appeared harsh toward Strop. That wasn’t my intention. And so

I owe him an apology. And I will apologize to him (on Sunday).”

Gonzales reports Strop initially didn’t want to meet with Costas. However, the meeting did take place.

“He also asked me who else he would have to apologize to,” Strop said. “He just apologized to me, and there are more people upset because of what he said, but we’ve all made mistakes. I’m not going to judge him just because he made a mistake.

 “I just feel better now that he’s at least apologized. We all do stuff that we have to apologize for.”

Later, Gonzales added this:

Strop said he realized Costas is a “good dude” after meeting him.

“A lot of people tell me he’s a great guy and a legend, and one of the best in what he does,” Strop said. “Like I said before, we make mistakes.”

Indeed, this is how adults handle this type of a situation. Everyone would be much better off if more people acted this way.

The Washington Post’s Chuck Culpepper, one of the best in the business, talks to the all-time best, Vin Scully.

Culpepper writes on Scully’s staggering longevity:

This is Vin Scully’s 66th season broadcasting Dodgers games. Sometimes, if you repeat the truth enough, it can become almost believable.

Yet long past 1950 when he started mid-century, on past the end of one century and well into another, deep into the spring of 2015, here he studies his game notes with his highlighters. Here he walks through the Vin Scully Press Box at Dodger Stadium with a sturdy gait that makes age 87 seem a swell place to be. Here he sits in the dining room, receives a coffee from a Dodgers employee, says to her, “Thank you, Maria; how are you, dear?” and says, “She’s one of the pillars of the community here.”

Here he speaks still, to a listener at a table, later to a million listeners on the Dodgers home (and selected road) broadcasts, with that voice that, by now, according to so many ears, would have to qualify as medicinal.

There have been 87 Novembers since his birth in the Bronx barely made the November (29th) of 1927, and 66 summers since he started at WTOP radio in Washington as a “summer replacement announcer” fresh out of Fordham in 1949, and 65 November 12s since a fateful one at Fenway Park in 1949. On any list of adjectives about Vin Scully, No. 1 is “grateful,” his gratefulness sustained even through the deaths of his first wife at 35 from an accidental medical overdose in 1972 and his first son at 33 in a helicopter crash in 1994. His birthdays include 16 grandchildren and zero self-congratulation: “I don’t want to say, ‘Hey, hooray, I’ve made 80,’” he said. “I don’t want to do that. I just will take it, thank you very much. I accept it.” Hours before a first pitch in late May, he says, “I’ve always felt, it’s a gift of God, whatever I have, whatever has made me do what I do for as long as I do it. But I know I can lose that in one second. A stroke. Whatever. One second. Blow the whole thing. So, when you do think about that, you realize how fortunate and how blessed you’ve been, and that’s really how I feel.”

Spanning the globe to give you the constant variety of sports media:

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Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing reports on “Mike & Mike” not moving to New York as had been previous announced. Also, it appears as if Molly Qerim won’t be joining the show.

 I wonder what happened to facilitate an about-face from ESPN so soon after the initial announcement about the show moving to New York. There hasn’t been much chatter about the thought process behind the show staying in Bristol, so all we have now are hypotheses… and I can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Qerim’s new (interim, at least) role is a tough break for her sanity, but might result in her being exposed to more viewers. For as much as we lambaste First Take, it draws plenty of eyeballs to ESPN. If she can hold her own moderating Skip Bayless and Stephen A. Smith, she could be in line for bigger things at ESPN than being the third wheel on Mike & Mike.

Classic TV Sports does a shot-by-shot analysis of Fox’s coverage from the final round of the U.S. Open. Jordan Spieth wasn’t in the top 2.

Fox showed 341 strokes during the tracking period. The final putt dropped at 10:18 so this worked out to 1.18 strokes per minute which was an increase over the 1.12 shown by NBC during the 2014 US Open. The shot rate matched that of the 2015 Masters on CBS, but trailed the 1.33 by NBC for the 2015 Players. (Note: The Masters post contains links to the shot charts from the 2014 majors).

Fox showed all but one shot from Dustin Johnson, skipping only a layup shot on the 8th hole. Fox focused extensively on the final two pairings, devoting 69% of its televised strokes to those four players. Fox showed just 19 golfers playing strokes and only seven players got coverage for at least 10 shots. The highest finisher not shown during the period was Kevin Kisner (T12).

Adam Schefter takes his turn in the “Still No Cheering in the Press Box” series by the Povich Center.

The news cycle has gone from 24 hours to 24 minutes to maybe even 24 seconds. It’s incredible how quickly things turn over now. Literally I could start the day at a 9 a.m. Sportscenter, we could be hitting one topic hard and by the end of the day the news cycle has completely shifted.

Whereas, back in the day, when I was working for the Rocky Mountain News terrified of being beat on a story, the news cycle is what we picked up that morning in the newspaper until the next morning’s newspaper came out. The news cycle has gone on steroids. I wish we could drug test the news cycle. It would fail every time.

The job has never been more difficult than it is today. There have never been more people competing for news. There has never been more news spit out faster than it is. There have never been more outlets to get it faster. There has never been more pressure for more different angles and yet you’re expected to be perfect.

The Sports Books Review Center has a review of Joe Posnanski’s new book, “The Secret of Golf” on Jack Nicklaus and Tom Watson.

Joe Posnanski is the author here, and he’s well suited for the job. He got to know Watson when he worked in Watson’s home of the Kansas City area. Posnanski’s first two books about the Reds of the 1970s and Buck O’Neil were nostalgic and sweet. Then he started working on a book on Joe Paterno, and, well, you probably know what happened to the ending of that story – an unexpected curve ball that was anything but sweet.

Here Posnanski is back writing about mythical figures from the past, who have the ability now to put their relationship into perspective. The book mostly focuses on Watson, who was a little unheralded when he arrived on the PGA Tour but quickly became one of its most promising young players. His problem was, he couldn’t close the sale at first. The phrase “you have to learn how to win” may not have been invented for Watson but it was close. Eventually, though, he figured things out and won eight major titles. The moment that torch was passed probably was the 1977 British Open, when Watson and Nicklaus played magnificent golf for four days and left the world’s best golfers in their dust. And Watson won by a stroke. Winner, and new champion.

Michael Bradley of the National Sports Journalism Center doesn’t think the increased NFL-Twitter relationship is good news for fans and the media.

The only problem with this for fans is that while the illusion of increased access will exist through a large menu of highlights and footage, there is the potential for sanitized content that benefits the NFL. Like so many other platforms with which the league is affiliated, Twitter could become something of a house organ. It will provide the illusion of giving fans more while actually providing a less objective media clearinghouse for news, opinion and analysis.

Frank Deford does an NPR commentary on Derek Jeter’s Players Tribune.

In an effort to give athletes an opportunity to talk without being beleaguered by journalists, former New York Yankees player Derek Jeter has created a website called The Players’ Tribune. It gives athletes the opportunity to speak their minds, unfiltered bymeddlesome members of the Fourth Estate. As an athlete, Jeter was brilliant at answering questions at great length without saying anything. But he obviously feels that other jocks, who are less talented at that art, need The Players’ Tribune.

Pessimists may worry that The Players’ Tribune emasculates those who would make a living interviewing athletes, but those of us in the profession must accept that modern athletes, schooled in social media, may no longer need ghost writers to express themselves.

The Dave Goldberg, the long-time NFL writer for the Associated Press, is this year’s winner of the Dick McCann Award from the Pro Football Hall of Fame.