Coincidence and Causality
I listen to ESPN Radio during the day. It's a sick, disgusting, twisted compulsion I have. I try to rid myself of it, but I always come back to the Boo-yah network. I'm a masochist. Each show is worse than the one before it (except for the hour that Keith Olberman spends on the Dan Patrick show, and the times that the local guys talk Hokie football). In this fetid cesspool, by far the worst of the swine is Colin Cowherd.
Cowherd took over for Tony Kornheiser a couple of years ago (which started things off on the wrong foot immediately - Kornheiser was the last worthwhile thing on the network). He's big on college football, which he knows one iota more about than every other sport there is in the world; this of course brings him to a grand total of one iota. His show isn't so much a sports show as it is the rantings of an amateur psychologist applied to sports. Every subject is dealt with in terms of the psychological impact it will have "in the locker room" or "among the front office" or "on the hundreds of mental institution 'wards of the state' who actually listen to this terrible show". Sports aren't played on the field, with bats and balls and goalposts - they're played solely within the minds of grown men who are incapable of doing their job to any reasonable degree unless they're constantly given positive reinforcement, like cookies and juice boxes.
I didn't catch the entire discussion today, but I'm fairly certain that Colin suggested, not that Greg Maddux SHOULD be the NL Cy Young, but that he should be given consideration for it by the voters. The Dodgers of course have been on a tear recently, winning 11 straight, and many of these wins came after the Dodgers acquired Maddux. Cowherd reached the perfectly reasonable conclusion that it was the acquisition of Maddux that allowed the Dodgers to believe that they were capable of winning, setting them off on their current streak, and that if they take the division it will be because of the locker room presence of Maddux. Only replace the word "reasonable" with "batshit insane". That's unfair to Colin actually; I don't think he's insane, just monstrously stupid.
Whoever the monkey was who he was having this discussion with (not a caller, some "expert") agreed with Colin, or at least didn't violently disagree with him and threaten to murder his children if he didn't stop being so goddamn stupid like any reasonable human being would do. Why is it that 95% of the people who write blogs and post about sports on the internet can understand the difference between coincidence and causality, but the majority of newspaper writers, talk radio and other "mainstream" sports commentators sound like the Catholic Church circa 800 AD?
Cowherd took over for Tony Kornheiser a couple of years ago (which started things off on the wrong foot immediately - Kornheiser was the last worthwhile thing on the network). He's big on college football, which he knows one iota more about than every other sport there is in the world; this of course brings him to a grand total of one iota. His show isn't so much a sports show as it is the rantings of an amateur psychologist applied to sports. Every subject is dealt with in terms of the psychological impact it will have "in the locker room" or "among the front office" or "on the hundreds of mental institution 'wards of the state' who actually listen to this terrible show". Sports aren't played on the field, with bats and balls and goalposts - they're played solely within the minds of grown men who are incapable of doing their job to any reasonable degree unless they're constantly given positive reinforcement, like cookies and juice boxes.
I didn't catch the entire discussion today, but I'm fairly certain that Colin suggested, not that Greg Maddux SHOULD be the NL Cy Young, but that he should be given consideration for it by the voters. The Dodgers of course have been on a tear recently, winning 11 straight, and many of these wins came after the Dodgers acquired Maddux. Cowherd reached the perfectly reasonable conclusion that it was the acquisition of Maddux that allowed the Dodgers to believe that they were capable of winning, setting them off on their current streak, and that if they take the division it will be because of the locker room presence of Maddux. Only replace the word "reasonable" with "batshit insane". That's unfair to Colin actually; I don't think he's insane, just monstrously stupid.
Whoever the monkey was who he was having this discussion with (not a caller, some "expert") agreed with Colin, or at least didn't violently disagree with him and threaten to murder his children if he didn't stop being so goddamn stupid like any reasonable human being would do. Why is it that 95% of the people who write blogs and post about sports on the internet can understand the difference between coincidence and causality, but the majority of newspaper writers, talk radio and other "mainstream" sports commentators sound like the Catholic Church circa 800 AD?
posted by Craig at 1:04 PM
3 Comments:
I agree Cowherd is beyong worthless. A friend of mine is a sportstalk host in Baton Rouge and was a guest in the only decent segment on the show. Spanning the globe. this is during the NCAA tourney
Cowherd goes to " Baton Rouge, football country, where football is the number one sportand spring football is #2. How do the Tigers look going into the Sweet 16?
My friend. "Colin I don't know I've been overwatching Spring football practice."
You then hearabout 3 seconds of dead air.
My friend. "Im kidding Colin...."
he was not invited back...
KANN
I agree with him, and Wilson betemit should get the MVP for the same absolutely ridiculous reasoning.
You're right, Spanning the Globe is the only decent segment; it's the only time when the show is actually about sports and not strippers and Vegas and psychosomatic illnessess (actually, Cowherd and Simmons have quite a bit in common, not the least of which is an inflated sense of their own importance). At least someone managed to call him out on his bullshit, even if it was only once.
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