ESPN Inc.

As spring training turns serious and the Mets and the Yankees limber their hamstrings in the Land of  read more »

From ESPN:

New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle was the pilot of a small airplane that crashed into a 50-story condominium in Manhattan, and Lidle is one of two confirmed dead.

UPDATE: A witness tells the Times, Lidle: "was on an incline, accelerating as he passed. Then he hooked around the corner, he hit the north side of the building, and you heard a tremendous explosion."

Ben has more stories here.

And the AP adds:

On Sunday, the day after the Yankees were eliminated from the playoffs, Lidle cleaned out his locker at Yankee Stadium and talked about his interest in flying.

-- Azi Paybarah

The Halftime show on Monday Night Football on ESPN is featuring something called "Jacked Up," showing the five biggest hits of the previous weekend's action and asking people to vote on which was the best one. The hits are blindside collisions, typically, cornerbacks hurling themselves at receivers, linebackers slicing into quarterbacks. Football is violent enough without this shameful promotion of its worst feature. What's so funny about spinal injury? I'm not surprised that goofball Chris Berman is yucking it up through this crap, but what excuse does Steve Young have? Tony Kornheiser needs to say something, now.

Last night during the Triple-A All-Star game on ESPN, Buck Martinez and Jon Sciambi talked about Zinedine Zidane. Today I turn on Cold Pizza on ESPN and Woody Paige is talking about the head butt heard 'round the world. Zidane did more in that moment to bring soccer to the U.S. than Pele did in years.

But everyone I talk to about the World Cup agrees with me: the rules have to change before it can go wide here. Consider that in the 15 games after the first round, the teams scored 26 goals—a meager 1.7 goals a game, leading in four cases to the farce of penalty kick shootouts. And the foolish limit on substitutions, three, meant that Germany and Argentina could play for two hours without us seeing the teenager considered one of the best players in the world, Lionel Messi. Bo-ring.

Hey we know what we're talking about, we invented some pretty good games. Soccer could take a rule from baseball—substitute your way down through the whole roster;another from basketball—when a player fouls out you can still replace him; and another from football—keep playing in a tie till one team scores.

There we were jammed on to Spring Street in the 26th minute, watching the Adidas-sponsored Jumbotron, along with I don't know, 5,000 other soccer fans, when the screen went black. We all waited for it to spark back on. Nothing. A guy with glasses and a headset climbed onto the thing and made an inaudible announcement, versions of which were passed through the crowd: There were too many people in the street, they hadn't counted on this crowd, it was considered a danger, the police had ordered it shut down.

At least that was the word on the street, as we sprinted for cabs to watch the game elsewhere.

And throughout the rest of the game, ESPN offered us shots of City Hall Plaza in Boston, crammed with what looked to be 20,000 fans. I know, everyone loves Bloomberg. But does the city have to be so goddamn efficient all the time?

"Racism in Soccer" was the teaser line ESPN kept putting on the screen to hold its audience for the halftime show of the Brazil-Ghana match. When we got to halftime, it turned out to be a report about comments made in 2004 by Aragones, the Spanish coach, when he baited his players to beat "the black," Thierry Henry. 2004? That's bait and switch. Let's talk about racism right now. Where was the satellite feed from Accra, Ghana, during today's game? ESPN has given us crowds in Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Sydney, Australia. But from Africa, where a whole continent was hanging on the bold boys from Ghana, nada.

May 16, 2006 4:05 a.m. 7 pounds St. Vincent’s Hospital    read more »

Julio Franco's oldest-man-ever home run last night for the Mets has set off fresh controversy about his age. The Times stands by the official version, 47, today. But commentators on ESPN, notably Tony Rome, have been insisting that Franco is 50. This is not a trivial discrepancy for middle aged men, notably moi. We are pulling for the high number. Are there any investigative reporters in San Pedro de Macoris?

ESPN celebrated Jackie Robinson day by having no blacks at the desk for Baseball Tonight. 0-4.

The oversight was especially glaring because minutes before the network had (re)aired its splendid documentary on the high school career of black basketball player Sebastian Telfair, Through the Fire . The documentary horrifies by showing how much emphasis there is on sports in poor black neighborhoods. It ends, tragically, with a father drilling his young son over and over on the court, so the kid can some day follow in Telfair's footsteps. Fat chance.

ESPN could honor Jackie Robinson by getting the ratios behind the desks closer to the ratios on the field. And by promoting more black commentators without requiring that they be star athletes first. Harold Reynolds, Kenny Smith, and even Joe Morgan have all proved to be more impressive as commentators than they were in action.

Lois Weiss says Forest City Ratner may have a couple of serious prospects to take space at the new Times HQ: ESPN and the Dechert law firm. -Matthew Schuerman

If you want an idea how rough it can be to enter the luxury-apartment market in Manhattan, consider  read more »

To the Editor:    read more »

Based on his planned spending on cable TV, Anthony is planning what The Politicker's outside expert considers the upscale white guy vote:

He's planning to spend about $500,000 over the last two weeks on these networks: Comedy Central, CNBC, CNN, ESPN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, TNT, YES (including 11 Yankees games), and USA.  read more »

The buy also includes Lifetime, a regular stop for pols, and -- for some reason -- Nickelodeon!

At J.  read more »

Just before Christmas, New York Times sports reporter Mike Wise, who'd spent the better part of a de  read more »

Wednesday, Nov. 13Don't be fooled by that rockin' that he got / He's still Al. Go from the block!  read more »

ESPN, the cable sports network, has proved itself far more serious about reporting labor conditions  read more »

The brewing rivalry between Sports Illustrated and its soon-to-launch competitor from ESPN has just  read more »

Time Inc.  read more »