Flipping through the channels last Thursday or Friday, I paused for a moment to watch a bit of ESPN’s early-round coverage of the US Open Championship. But alas, ESPN had made the (insane) decision to put Chris Berman in one of the tower analysts chairs — which is the sports equivalent of asking, say, Don Imus to give Al Sharpton’s eulogy. Only without the money lines about pomade, Jews, and velvet sweatsuits.
In fact, so grating was Berman — who mixed his “trademark” nicknames (Tiger “You have to admit it’s kinda funny seeing a Negro climb out of the” Woods; Phil “me up another pitcher of Molson, kid, and fetch me a cold cut hoagie, extra cheese” Michelson; Retief “in my country, it ain’t sexual harassment if it’s just” Goosen, etc.) with saccharine stories so desperate to come off as fraught — that I half expected Garrison Keillor would show up in PA just to brain him with a fat Lake Woebegone trout.
Couple Berman’s cloying faux earnestness with his insistence on inserting his “signature lines” (at one point, he actually tried to will a softly undercut wedge shot to spin “back-back-back-back-back!” toward the hole), and you had one of the most jolting and inappropriate golf broadcasts in the history of televised major championship coverage — causing softly spoken Aussie and Brit analysts everywhere to ease their pain with pitchers of tequila slammers and a fistful of whatever pills don’t mix well with hard alcohol.
And if you think it was just me who noticed, consider this quip, from New York Post columnist Phil Mushnick:
His continued reliance on buffoonery has established him as the uncle you thought was funny when you were 10 but now no longer ask to be seated next to at Thanksgiving dinner.
For the record, I think Berman is a fine and insightful football analyst — and I enjoy the work he does with Tom Jackson and the rest of the ESPN Gameday crew; but as a play-by-play / color man, he brings all the charm of an insincere hallmark card, and all the humor of a third-rate comic warming up the jack&coke crowd at a suburban strip club — without the payoff of spinning pasties and $50 lap dances in the “VIP” cubicles.
All of which serves to remind me that those of us who like to watch the MLB All-Star festivities will be subjected, in a few weeks time, to Berman’s forced enthusiasm during the home run hitting contest — where he’ll name nearby towns that well-hit balls are supposedly heading towards (“this one is going to end up in ROCK RIDGE!”) in a voice that tries to bring off fanboy exuberance, but instead sounds more like that DJ at a sparsely-filled dance club whose patrons would just as soon his shut his intrusive pie hole and go about playing Jennifer Lopez’ “Qué Hiciste” in a continuous loop so that they could do X, sweat a bit, and then go have oral sex in the back of a Ford Explorer.
Please, Chris. For the love of God — stick to freakin’ football, brother, and leave the Renaissance Man stuff to folks like Vin Scully or John Miller, neither of whom has ever caused a Boston Red Sox fan to jam a glove re-lacing tool deep into his inner ear until “the demon voice is gone.”
— All of which I offer solely as constructive criticism, of course. So you’re naturally free take it or leave it.
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update: Wow. Seems there’s an entire cottage industry surrounding Berman’s combo alpha-male / Alan Alda persona.
And seriously, “You’re with me, leather”? Genius.
Though I once scored with “You are the star that makes my Little Dipper big” — thanks in large part to a mutual abuse of Jello Shooters and the fact that it was really, really cold in the fraternity house at the time.
Wow. I guess I’m kinda glad, then, that I was out of town and couldn’t watch the coverage. Part of the problem, I think, is that with Tiger Woods having brought so many new people to the game, there’s this idea among the TV people that golf needs to be made "exciting". Combine that with the fact that there are genuinely funny golf commentators like David Faraday and Peter Aliss, and you’ve got some serious wannabe action going on. Personally, I say just show me the shots.
Jeff:You might want to start here: http://deadspin.com/sports/chris-berman/he-could-go-all-the-way-166410.phpand just have fun from there.
At least it wasn’t Keith. Right?
I could Google all day and still this post might be almost completely impenetrable for me. TV … golf … not funny … Garrison Keillor … oral sex … glove re-lacing tool. God help us.
I enjoyed that. If you ever have any spare time and can get access to the English Premier League, you should find enough halfwitted drooling morons deperately seeking metaphors to keep your gall bladder empty for a year.
The US Open follows closely behind The Masters as my favorite sporting events, and has been a long time Fathers Day tradition. Berman and crew can suck the life out of an event that requires little input from the announcers.
Give me Feherty, Aliss, and Kostis any day of the week. If you ever want some laugh out loud reading, Feherty’s books are beyond funny.
of whatever pills don’t mix well with hard alcohol.
I thought I knew you man, you’ve changed.
All pills mix well with hard alcohol.
The only sporting event I enjoy more than The Master and the US Open is when my Colts win the Super Bowl !!!!!
It is a shame that Berman has fallen from his pedestal. I still recall fondly how fun ESPN was in its early years, when his schtick was paired with an obvious love of sport. Now it appears to be about being Boomer.
And I cannot stand Johnny Miller. “When I was playing …”, “when I shot a 63 here …”, “when I …”. Great round, fuckstick. It also happens to be the last great thing you have done in your career, over 30 years ago !
Does anybody have a quick cure for when your entire ribcage cramps?
Mega-amen! Bring on the CBS crew and get Berman the flock out of golf FOREVER!!!
I hate Berman even on football. It’s like seeing the ghost of John Candy doing jokes from Uncle Buck and expecting laughs. Dude is as poor at his job as I am at metaphors
Me, either. But I’ll take him over Ken Venturi any day. What a monumental asshole.
I enjoyed Berman on NFL Primetime (since prscribed by NBC’s new Sunday night contract). However, I miss Pat Summerall on golf and NFL coverage. We have way too many announcers and color guys trying to out-Madden one another, even Madden at this point. (We need a deep trench and Joe Buck and Joe Theisman to start with followed shortly after by Matt Millen…for the good of the children.)But I digress: Golf, perhaps more than any other sport, speaks for itself. that’s why I miss Summerall. He knew the strry was not him.
I blame Berman in particular, and espn in general, for the total beclowning of tv sports. Even the local sports crews now feature gangs of punk-ass human cartoons shouting over highlight reels set to jungle drumbeats while they flash peace signs at the camera. WTF?
The contrast beween the type of professional coverage done by cbs with the blow-dried offering of nbc at the open (they even got Bob Costas to bland it up), was night-day.
And one more thing; The star system, which has been the nfl bible for 25 yrs, doesn’t serve golf well, when you’re only flogging one star (Woods) to the public. To make this work, you need a Manning to his Brady.
You know what was weird about the TV coverage of the final round Sunday? After Baddeley triple bogeyed the first hole (and went downhill from there) and Tiger was making his move around the 11th hole to catch Cabbrero, it was like Baddeley had spontaneously combusted. You would have thought Tiger was playing his round alone. They simply did not show any shots of the Australian on the back nine until the 18th and it was like NBC finally noticed Tiger was playing in a twosome.
ESPN had a guy who seemed to do all the ‘upper-crusty’ sports: tennis, yachting… things like that. He was not a particularly tall guy… sometimes wore a straw hat. Jimmy something-or-other. Seems he’d have been a great choice.
More Faldo. He’s won 6 majors and he’s funny. He also got caught bangin’ some strange on tour. Great insight. I quit Berman when he was adding color to a slippery left-to-right 3-footer: "This putt will make him sweat more than Rocco Mediate’s butt".
Even the local sports crews now feature gangs of punk-ass human
cartoons shouting over highlight reels set to jungle drumbeats while
they flash peace signs at the camera. mystifying.
Agreed! It was worse then sitting through Monday Night Football with Dennis Miller. A good dose of Summerall would have worked nicely.
To be honest, all ESPN cares about is football. The other sports are how they fill in the time between when they can show football stories, and playoffs are cut into for the latest football news. The Yankees might clinch the pennant with this hit…. but lets cut away to a training camp story where x player is 3 hours late. It’s game 7 of the Stanley Cup, so we’ll show a highlight reel 30 seconds long, then go back to talking about what coach is likely to be fired first. They’ve turned into the Sporting News.
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