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‘ESPN’
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By Al Bernstein September 1st, 2009 All Boxing Articles
 I can count on one hand the times in my 30 year career that I have expressed disagreement with any of my broadcasting colleagues in a public forum.
Mind you, I have often disagreed, but seldom if ever have I spoken out. My style as a communicator is not built on argument or confrontation and I don’t really understand “media feuds.” And, I am certainly not trying to ignite one here.
All that having been said, I feel called upon to strongly disagree with some of the opinions expressed by ESPN commentator Teddy Atlas in a recent interview I read on the internet.
I’ll further qualify this (how much qualifying can one man do?) by saying that Teddy and I have never had any issue with each other on a personal basis, and we have many mutual friends.
So, this column is really a reaction to his comments and there is nothing else behind it.
In this recent interview, Teddy makes some all inclusive comments about the internet that I think are very unfair and inaccurate. In the process, he diminishes one of the strengths of the sport, in much the same way uninformed members of the mainstream media have been doing in recent years.
First, even though the interview he did was with an internet writer and was dispensed on the internet, he completely dismisses the internet as a means of providing accurate or meaningful information.
Here is some of what he said:
“I don’t read any boxing internet articles unless someone sends me something or faxes me something, which I really don’t care to read in the first place. There is just so many boxing websites that I wonder how they survive. More...
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By Al Bernstein June 9th, 2009 All Boxing Articles
"This Is Not Time For Humor!"
Imagine, if you will, this scene. In a slightly run down urban neighborhood, a huge truck with an ESPN logo on it is parked behind a concert venue.
Several police cars surround the truck and officers exit their vehicles and approach the truck very carefully. They have already called for back up because they believe a robbery might be in progress.
The officers have no idea what the label “ESPN” means, and so they figure it’s some kind of cover to look like a real business. They deduce that equipment or furniture is being taken from the concert venue and put into the truck by the thieves.
They carefully enter the vehicle only to discover it is a television production truck with a now startled crew working inside it. A nervous producer tries to convince the skeptical police that this is all part of an all-sports network and they are there to televise a sports event that evening. The police finally accept this is “some kind” of television event, even if they still don’t know what ESPN means.
This sound like a twilight zone episode set in some alternative universe to ours. But, as delightful as it might be to think there is a parallel universe that has not yet been sullied by Stephen A. Smith’s commentaries or the Around The Horn show, that’s not where this all took place.
All of this really happened right here in 1980, in our universe, on planet earth, in a little place called Chicago, Illinois.
The television truck was there to do one of the early shows in the Top Rank Boxing Series on ESPN, when police did, in fact, assume something criminal was going on and acted as described above.
These police officers could be excused if they didn’t know what ESPN stood for, since none of the city of Chicago was yet wired for cable, and ESPN was only in a small fraction of the homes nationally. More...
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