Stephen A. Smith Must... Retire!

1. The approach of a new Eagles season reminds all that their Monday Night Football coverage last year was an out-and-out joke. The broadcasters hardly seemed to give a flying flip about the game. Between the bald-headed comedian they had on there kissing the collective behinds of whatever athlete presented the best “storyline” and the triad of incompetents blatantly putting the game on ice to interview a half-assed celebrity each and every broadcast (when they came to our city, they interviewed Sylvester Stallone. Thanks for digging deep!), it was hard to tell there was even a football game going on. This isn’t even mentioning the approximately 1.8 billion infuriating cheesesteak references that were made during the game. Meanwhile, at the end of the season, they excised the rightfully hated Joe Theismann from the broadcast. Maybe the guy is a pompous blowhard, but I would guess his biggest crime would be trying to inject some actual color and play-by-play into the affair rather than cracking jokes and treating Brett Favre like the Mahatma Gandhi.
2. The recent “Who’s Now” segment that they used to burn time on a slow summer sports schedule. Enough has been said about this, but they basically put together a “bracket” of sixty-four athletes and asked fans and analysts to vote and pontificate on the level on each competitor’s cool quotient. In other words, the most pointless, dehumanizing waste of time and resources since Alberto Gonzales’ last batch of Senate testimony.
3. The other day, I was watching a Phillies game being broadcast by Joe Morgan and Jon Miller on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball. While the Braves and Phillies competed in a game that could ultimately DECIDE THE NATIONAL LEAGUE WILD CARD, Morgan and Miller burned a whole inning talking about Barry Bonds’ 756th home run and how great it was that Hank Aaron addressed Bonds via satellite after the home run took place. Even though Aaron was clearly reading off cue cards and has since vowed not to even appear in Atlanta when Bonds plays a series there, they could find no reason why folks would doubt the man’s sincerity. While their shunning of the game was egregious, the return from the ensuing commercial break revealed everything one needs to know about the steady decline of ESPN into insignificance: they actually had the temerity to interrupt the game action to replay Aaron’s speech in its entirety. While this was going on, they didn’t even bother to feature an inset screen as the Braves touched Jamie Moyer for an RBI double and he was lifted from the game. Meanwhile, the Bonds thing had happened a week earlier, and neither Bonds nor Aaron had anything to do with the game being played. (Did I mention that Morgan spent the whole game calling Jimmy Rollins “Jimmy Rawlings”?)

So why am I going off against ESPN in a column about the need to eradicate Stephen A. Smith? First, because I am not paid by the inch (in fact, I’m not paid at all), and can, therefore, spew off about any nothingness that comes into my brain, much like Mr. Smith. Second, because the Inquirer should fire this imbecile for the same reason ESPN cluelessly employs him. Time to stop cynically pandering to the demographics. Smith’s style-over-substance approach needs to go (by the way, when did screaming become a “style”?). Surely, he believes his writing is “provocative,” but there is nothing interesting at all about his delivery or his content. It is not intelligent. It is not well structured. It is not fun to read. Half the time, it isn’t even grammatically correct. He just writes whatever he thinks will piss the most people off, and pretends that it is rebellious, when in fact it is a carefully planned strategy.

So this is what I am going to do about it. Check back here at Phillyist on a semi-regular basis, and every time Mr. Smith Goes to Press, I will dissect his column and provide my opinion, which obviously is gospel, on why his latest work is banal, obvious, and clearly a mail-in job crafted between looking in the mirror and figuring out silly faces that can be made while making banal, obvious, mail-in comments on the television airwaves.

Here is a quick preview of what you will read straight from today’s column about the New York Mets, which again, APPEARED IN A PHILADELPHIA PAPER.

Paragraph 2, D1: “It’s still early. Still too soon to allow trepidation to permeate Philadelphia’s hopes and expectations.” – Only someone who spends most of his time in New York and Bristol, Connecticut could write this. Phillies fans have nothing but “trepidation” about the Phillies' chances for this year’s playoffs. This is because year in and year out, the Phillies (players and management) do just enough to come close, only to blow it in the end. So the thought has no base in reality. Later in the same paragraph, he fills everyone in that the Phillies are still “looking ahead at the New York Mets” in the standings. Wow, thanks for that insight. Isn’t that what the standings are on D4 for? Does anybody who follows the Phillies not know this?

Paragraph 10, D6: The paragraph begins with the line “I respect Gillick when he says ‘We’ve got to take it one day at a time’…” – How can you “respect” someone who feeds you the hackneyed “taking it one day at a time” quote? This is right up there with “giving 110 percent” and “it was a team effort” in the pantheon of quotes that athletes and executives feed reporters when they don’t feel like wasting the time to provide actual insight and observations. But Smith is lazy and foolish enough to think that this is a significant quote. He probably should have slapped Pat Gillick for being so condescending, but at the very least he should have been wise enough not to give it prominent placement in a story featuring his byline.

There you have it: Just a taste of what’s to come. For as long as Brian Tierney continues to allow Stephen A. Smith to kill the brain cells of Philadelphia commuters with his unique brand of idiotic drivel, I will be there… unless it gets busy at work. But other than that, I will be there.

Image via Flickr user UwePhilly.