Aside from playing lots of wiffle ball and eating my weight in hamburgers over the 4th of July weekend, I also finished reading one of the must-read sports books of the summer — Those Guys Have All The Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales. It is a great read for anybody interested in sports media or journalism.
The unique thing about Those Guys Have All The Fun is that the majority of it is told in first person by current and former ESPN employees. Each chapter starts off with a brief intro by Miller and Shales and then dives right into first person accounts of everything from reaction to the creepy Erin Andrews hotel photos to Sportscenter anchors. The first-person writing style keeps the book moving and offers a glimpse into the heads of many of the famous ESPN personalities.
A few passages of the book are extra interesting for Pittsburgh fans. There’s a lengthy section on ESPN’s lack of reporting on the lawsuit against Ben Roethlisberger filed in Nevada during July 2009. If you remember that dreaded month (who doesn’t?), ESPN was literally the last outlet to publish the news about Roethlisberger. The company cited its policy that it doesn’t report civil lawsuits against players, however that hadn’t prevented the Worldwide Leader from covering civil lawsuits against Pacman Jones, Roberto Alomar, et al in the past.
Here is the money quote about the lack of reporting on the Roethlisberger civil suit from the book:
“…if Mark Shapiro (former Executive Vice President of Programming at ESPN) had been there, that thing would have been covered right away. Unless he had a fucking concussion, Mark would have been all over it…then another thing happens with [Roethlisberger] and makes you look look really, really stupid. You can’t do that. The guy’s got a problem, and they just don’t want to deal with it. It’s nuts.” – Peter Bonventre (ESPN writer)
Several other ESPN staffers defended the decision not to report on the lawsuit and said the decision to remain silent had nothing to do with Roethlisberger’s ESPY appearance or the network’s relationship with the NFL.
Keith Olbermann details how he broke the story of Mario Lemieux’s retirement in 1997 due to Hodgkin’s. Olbermann learned of the retirement through a source in Lemieux’s circle and said “you could almost hear the wind being sucked out of Bristol, Connecticut, by everbody gasping, especially in Pittsburgh. To drop a bombshell like that on people was a privilege and a great thrill.” Yeah, something tells me Pens fans didn’t feel the same way when they heard the news…
As a blogger, one of my favorite sections was hearing ESPN personalities talk about which blogs they enjoy reading. Both Bob Ley and Rece Davis enjoy Deadspin and Bloguin’s own Awful Announcing. Ley called Deadspin “wet-your-pants funny.”
The book is heavy reading and a little slow at times, but the perfect read for a locked out NFL fan during a lazy weekend of vacation. Lots of good stuff from guys like Beano Cook and Bill Simmons and it is interesting to see how sleazy and drama-filled ESPN really is.
You can check out the book on Amazon.
