Dan Le Batard has pulled off another questionable stunt. And this time, it will cost him a two-day suspension from ESPN.

Jason McIntyre of the Big Lead broke the story:

How dense are the folks running the Akron Beacon-Journal? Last month, ESPN radio host Dan LeBatard approached the paper and tried to buy a full-page ad thanking LeBron James for his time in Miami.

Key word: BUY.

The paper, unbelievably, passed on the estimated $90,000 LeBatard’s ad might have cost.

Fast-forward to this week: LeBatard, rebuffed by the paper, decided to buy a billboard in Akron thanking LeBron for his time in Miami.

Smart, humorous, and the kind of thing more radio hosts should be doing (in Boston, this is the garbage they peddle). Come on, you had to smirk at the usage of Comic Sans. It’s the sort of thing social media devoured this week.

Guess who’s covering this story of the billboard on the front page of its paper?

The Akron Beacon Journal.

It seems ESPN wasn’t amused at Le Batard buying a billboard to make a statement. From ESPN’s Josh Krulewitz:

“Dan LeBatard will be off the air for two days, returning Monday. His recent stunt does not reflect ESPN’s standards and brand. Additionally, we were not made aware of his plans in advance.”

His latest stunt comes on the heels of Le Batard giving his Baseball Hall of Fame vote to Deadspin last year. He was roundly criticized for that move.

Le Batard won many awards as a columnist for the Miami Herald. Now as a radio and TV personality, he seems bent on doing stunts to call attention to himself. Perhaps necessary, but also disappointing.

Even though word leaked out last week, the official announcement is out. All in all, interesting timing given Stephen A. is coming off a company-imposed break following his idiotic comments on domestic violence.

The official release:

*******

ESPN and SiriusXM have reached an agreement for ESPN to produce The Stephen A. Smith Show exclusively for SiriusXM’s Mad Dog Sports Radio, channel 85.  The two-hour daily program will debut on satellite radio Tuesday, Sept. 2, at 1 p.m. ET.  The show will be produced and broadcast from ESPN Audio’s headquarters in Bristol.

“Words can’t express how excited I am to be going to SiriusXM,” said Smith. “I’ve waited a long time for this. All I’m going to say is Sept. 2 can’t arrive soon enough. So Buckle Up!  Because I’m coming.”

Traug Keller, ESPN senior vice president, production, business divisions, added, “This is an exciting new business opportunity for ESPN Audio. By creating outstanding exclusive audio content for SiriusXM, in this case The Stephen A. Smith Show, we are maximizing our presence on a variety of platforms that expand our reach and options for sports fans.”

“Stephen A. is an exceptional talent,” said Scott Greenstein, SiriusXM’s President and Chief Content Officer.  “We are thrilled he has chosen SiriusXM to be the exclusive home of The Stephen A. Smith Show and we’re excited to collaborate with ESPN to provide him with a platform that delivers his commentary to listeners across the U.S. and Canada.”

I wanted to share a couple of good pieces that look at modern sportswriting.

Roy Peter Clark writing at Poytner.org makes the case for keeping game stories:

You would think that the game story would be obsolete, that sports networks and the internet would have provided countless replays accompanied by endless commentary by both players and a clone army of talking heads. Or that by now the game story would be the job of a robot journalist.

But guess what, the game story lives. Proof positive comes from Steven Goff, the soccer writer for the Washington Post.  His game story, which played on page one, has the benefit of describing one of the most shocking matches in World Cup history, the demolition of the home team Brazil 7-1 on July 8 by the stereotypically methodical Germans, who would go on to win it all.

I’ve been reading and re-reading Goff’s story for more than a month now.  I am about to X-ray it for you to reveal what I think makes it special.  You can read it now.

It is worth reading Clark’s breakdown of Goff’s story, which includes this passage:

The phrase that stands for me is: “the Brazilians looked like a team of schoolboys new to the sport.” The great flamboyant food critic, Alan Richman, was once a sports writer, and he and I once tangled in a playful debate as to whether the game story was more news or criticism. I argued news. He argued criticism.

Over the years, I find myself drifting towards his side. I know enough about soccer to understand in real time how badly the Brazilians were playing.  What I needed from Steven Goff was an explanation and a validation of that perspective. There are moments when the skillful writer can merge the elements of information and judgment, the kind of move we might expect from a Frank Rich reviewing a Broadway play or a presidential debate.

Clark has a good point about Goff’s story. However, most games don’t have the historical impact and scope of a World Cup semifinal. The majority of them are White Sox-Texas in the dog days of August. In those cases, the traditional gamer doesn’t work anymore. That’s why we’re seeing alternatives.

******

Jason Gay examined the modern sports column in a column for the Wall Street Journal:

Is this the greatest sports column ever written?

It is most definitely not. It’s not even the second-best, third-best or even the sixth-best. It is modestly possible that this sports column could be somewhere between the seventh- and eighth-best ever written, but please, the resolution and final number is meaningless. This is not a sports column about answers. It is only about the questions.

Can the Seahawks repeat?

Did Big Papi disrespect baseball?

Is Andrew Luck now elite?

Is Tom Brady no longer elite?

Did LeBron Make a Mistake?

Will the World Cup skip Russia?

Could Manny Pacquiao beat a shark?

Is Messi Overrated?

Is golf dead?

Do the Cubs still play baseball?

Had enough? Are you intrigued—or simply annoyed?

Chances are you are used to it. We are amid the Great Socratic era of sport. There is no lust for answers; it’s all about the queries. The teasers. The open-enders. The argument-starters. (And, if we’re being fair, some good old-fashioned nonsense, and ludicrous fallacies.)

Later he writes:

The great/insidious thing about these questions is that the debate can be endless. The worst thing that can happen to a sports debate, of course, is a resolution. You watch the Spurs play the Miami Heat, and they’ve answered the question. The Spurs can beat the Miami Heat. Soundly. Yowza.

But could the Spurs beat the 1984 Celtics? Could they beat the ’96 Bulls? The 74 B.C. Romans? The ’68 Stones? Now those are questions without a resolution. It’s like The Smiths vs. The Cure. Rod Lavers versus Stan Smiths. Pancakes versus Waffles.
We’ve all engaged this maddening monster. I’ve definitely done it. It’s fun. And the reliable defense is that we’re simply trying to replicate conversations that happen all the time in public—like around a grill at a barbecue. (Of course, there is only one question I’ve ever had around a grill at a barbecue, and that is, How Long Do I Have to Keep that Corn on the Grill?)

So where this rate among all-time posts?

I got my Chris Sale fix on Wednesday at U.S. Cellular Field. I just hope he stays healthy because he truly is special.

Sale reminds me of another young left-hander for the Sox: Gary Peters. For a stretch in the 60s, he was among the best in the game. He was the ’63 Rookie of the Year, and in four of five seasons from ’63 through ’67 had an ERA of 2.50 or lower.

Here are his stats at Baseball Reference.

Even before Tiger Woods tweaked his back Sunday, CBS was going all in on Rory McIlroy with their advance promos for this week’s PGA Championship. Multiple network ads during the Bridgestone Invitational highlighted the Irish golfer’s bid to win a second straight major after his victory at the British Open.

It is yet another sign that the transition has begun from the Woods era in golf to McIlroy.

“When you air an event, you want to promote what you think is the most marketable,” said CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus. “And right now, the most marketable thing in golf is Rory McIlroy.”

Jim Nantz, CBS’ lead voice on golf, thinks the transition actually began with McIlroy’s landslide victories in the 2011 U.S. Open and 2012 PGA Championship.

“This is something that didn’t happen in the last three weeks,” Nantz said. “He’s won three major championships in the last three years. It’s exciting for the game. I can’t wait to see what he’s going to have for us at (the PGA). We’ve seen this before—and you know who I’m talking about—where you go, ‘Who’s going to beat this guy?’ That’s what it feels like.”

McIlroy has a ways to go when it comes to being a TV ratings force like Woods. Sunday’s final round of the Bridgestone was down 21 percent from 2013 when Woods won. However, the 3.0 rating was the highest rating for golf since the U.S. Open; 1 ratings point is worth more than 1 million homes. So maybe people are starting to catch on to McIlroy.

Wanted to share this interview Dave Revsine did with Keith Olbermann about his excellent new book, Opening Kickoff: The Tumultuous Birth of a Football Nation. The BTN host traces the roots of college football and details how past is prologue when it comes to the issues and controversy plaguing the current game.

I’ll have a review coming soon about the book. Definitely worth your time.

In October, 2012, I did an interview with the editors of the new Sports on Earth site. Editor Larry Burke explained the mission:

The phrase we kicked around a lot was ‘great writing with a point of view.’  We looked for writers who didn’t have that quote-unquote take, but were able to step back and look at things in interesting, smart and sometimes different ways. When you’re writing on pieces in the news, there are a lot of choices. We know people have choices. Why would they come to us? How do we get our place in the universe? The bar is set high.

For the most part, Sports on Earth achieved its goals. The writing always has been superb with some of best in the business.

Yet it wasn’t enough to prevent many people losing their jobs today due to a company restructuring.

Matt Yoder at Awful Announcing has a detailed account:

The success of Grantland was always going to lead to the explosion of sites placing an emphasis on an eclectic hub of longform sportswriting.  To that end, Sports on Earth achieved what it set out to do.  One only has to look at the roster of talented writers to see the fruits of SoE’s labors.  A lineup ranging from Will Leitch to Leigh Montville to Wendy Thurm to Mike Tanier to Patrick Hruby were all present at Sports on Earth.  Although the website didn’t reach the heights and mass appeal of Grantland, it certainly found its niche amongst the sports media intelligentsia.  There was rarely a day that went by when someone didn’t RT a Sports on Earth piece into my timeline as a beacon of great sportswriting.  Sometimes the sports media can get too caught up in the godliness of its own work and suffer from exhaustion from patting each other on the back, but in many cases it was deserved with Sports on Earth.  Whenever talented sportswriters lose a job, it’s a bad day for any of us who write about sports, no matter the platform.  And it’s a bad day for sports as a whole.

Yoder also had this from Will Leitch:

Today has been a lousy day. Many people whose work I absolutely adore lost their gigs at Sports On Earth today. This was a surprise to me, to say the least.

I am not one of those losing my job today. This makes it difficult for me to say anything; as someone who has been laid off literally dozens of times, I know there isn’t anything someone who is staying can say to someone who is going that doesn’t sound awful and patronizing. Sports On Earth is going to continue, and I, along with the others staying, will do our best to do a great site, but it won’t be the same, obviously. All I can say is that I’m sad and that I miss them already and I will read them everywhere they go forever.

Yep, real bad news.

If NFL teams are in training camp, it must be time for Hard Knocks. The first episode featuring the Atlanta Falcons kicks off tonight at 10 p.m. ET on HBO.

The show always delivers, as Hard Knocks pulls us in with story lines about obscure rookies trying to make the team and incredible access. It is a glimpse behind the curtain.

From a TV viewing standpoint, it is the best thing about the NFL’s preseason.

NFL.com has a teaser to the first episode.

Dan Hanzus writes:

A teaser clip from Tuesday’s premiere, featuring an entertaining skirmish between defensive end Kroy Biermann and rookie offensive tackle Jake Matthews.

“You hit me in the face again, 70, you see what the f— happens,” barks Biermann, now officially on our radar as a potential breakout star of the season.

An amused-looking Matt Ryan and Julio Jones are shown taking in the mini-brawl from a safe distance.

“Biermann and Jake … first day,” the quarterback deadpans.

It appears as if Falcons owner Arthur Blank, no stranger to the TV cameras, wants to be one of the stars of this year’s Hard Knocks. D. Orlando Ledbetter of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution writes:

Falcons owner Arthur Blank has been at camp for the last eight days, a franchise-record. In the past, he usually just drops by for a few days, he said on SiriusXM’s NFL Radio last night.

We’re pretty sure that he’ll be on the show.

Deadspin, which thrives on pointing out the blunders of others, found itself on the other side Saturday.

Sean Newell originally did a post on an interview Lou Piniella gave to a Portland radio station. He writes:

Lou Piniella sounds like a man fed up with every goddamned thing in this train-wreck interview with 750 The Game in Portland on Friday. In between talking about a charity event he is participating in and how he doesn’t much like working with the kids involved, he makes a pretty bold claim about Alex Rodriguez using a “skin cream” while the two were in Seattle. He also blames his wife for leaving him alone with the kids, yells at the kids to “shut up,” and generally sounds like a man at the end of his rope in this rambling 20-minute interview.

Sounds like ol’ Lou has lost it, right? And you’d think the A-Rod comments would make major news.

Naturally, Deadspin tweeted out the post (above). However, it didn’t take long for other tweeters to inform Deadspin that there was a problem.

It wasn’t the real Lou Piniella doing the interview. It was an impersonator doing a bit on the radio show.

So at the top of the post, Newell had to add this line:

Update: This is not Lou Piniella, it’s a dumb radio bit. My mistake.

The thing is, Deadspin still has the post on the site. It changed the headline to “Fake Lou Piniella.” But why keep up the post?

Newell had this exchange in the comments section.

Now far be it for me to teach journalism to the guys who know it all, but if you make a error like that, what is the point in keeping up the post? The better way to go would be to take down the post and do a new post acknowledging the error. The revised post is confusing.

OK, mistakes happen. Regardless of what occurred here, you can be sure Deadspin will be waiting to swoop in the next time someone goofs up.