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A long, long time ago when I was a teenager ESPN was actually a network that was dedicated to showing sports. The showcase of the network was SportsCenter, which every day showed highlights from every single game played in the country, without any interruptions from Coors Light or their cold, hard previously scripted opinions. It was during these halycon days of ESPN that the world was introduced to the duo of Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann.

Eventually Olbermann would leave the network, instead choosing to spend his time talking about politics on MSNBC, but you knew that much like the mafia, just when he thought he was out, the sports would pull Olbermann back in. It all started with his work on NBC's Sunday Night Football, and now Olbermann has taken the next logical step in his return to the welcoming arms of the sporting world. He's become a baseball blogger.

Matt Millen, the man who turned the Detroit Lions into the worst team in NFL history, has made his first public appearance since he was fired as team president in September, appearing on NBC's pregame show before today's Falcons-Cardinals game.

Asked by NBC's Dan Patrick how he felt watching the team he built go 0-16, Millen said, "It was brutal, obviously. Knowing everybody up there ... watching it unfold, it was probably harder watching it from home than it was when you're up there."

Millen said he was "completely responsible" for the Lions' 0-16 record, adding, "You can say something about the coaching, you can say something about the players, but inevitably, I'm responsible for them."

When Patrick asked Millen, "Would you have fired you?" Millen answered, "Yeah, I would have."

Joe Horn is unhappy, which apparently happens with the frequency of the sunrise. He's currently in Atlanta, property of the Falcons, but he'd love to be anywhere else.

Six weeks ago, Horn made a plea for the Cowboys to save him from the Falcons, and nothing came of it. So, naturally, he broke out the PR machine for another go of it. Via PFT, Horn told Dan Patrick, who was conveniently hosting a radio show, that he'd love to play in Dallas or Philadelphia.

Given that Horn is well past the unofficial NFL retirement age for wide receivers, I'm not sure if anything will come of this. The thing is, if he had signed with the Packers over the Falcons last year, this wouldn't even be an issue. Of course, Horn probably would've had to sign for less money to play in Green Bay, and while I'll never begrudge a player for taking the dough, it's really hard to defend anybody willingly agreeing to go to Atlanta.

Whatever, Andrew Brandt, former Packers front office-type turned Internet writer, retells the story:

For those of you sitting around pining for the golden age of "SportsCenter," some good news via the New York Times' Richard Sandomir: the band's getting back together ... on NBC!

Dan Patrick, who left ESPN last year to create his own syndicated radio program and write a column for Sports Illustrated, will join NBC Sports where he will be reunited with Keith Olbermann to call the N.F.L. highlights on "Football Night in America."

Olbermann left ESPN in 1997 amid some controversy, but he's now arguably more popular than ever after emerging as MSNBC's left-of-center answer to Fox News' "fair and balanced" political coverage.

Anyway, according to Sandomir, "NBC is looking to recreate the chemistry and quirky humor that Patrick and Olbermann demonstrated when they were co-anchors on ESPN's 'SportsCenter,' which they dubbed 'The Big Show.'"

Olbermann was with the "Football Night in America" crew last season serving as something of a social commentator (you may remember him from such forgettable segments as, "Michael Vick, Not Michael Victim"). Whatever, I welcome the change, if for no other reason than a) I grew up watching Patrick and Olbermann, and b) less Bob Costas for everyone!

Long before steroids became the blackeye du jour of Major League Baseball, there was that small problem of gambling that threatened to tear the game apart. Much like Barry Bonds has been the poster boy of the Steroids Era, all-time hits leader Pete Rose carried the cross that was baseball's gambling problem.

You all know the story by now, Rose was banished from baseball in 1989 by commissioner Bart Giamatti when it was discovered that he was betting on baseball while managing the Reds, even on the Reds games themselves. Then, despite mountains of evidence to the contrary, Rose spent 15 years denying he ever bet on baseball before finally coming clean about it in 2004.

Now Charlie Hustle has admitted how much money he was betting on each game after an interview with Dan Patrick on The Dan Patrick Show this past Tuesday.

"It was like $2,000. That's it," Rose said in the interview. "And it didn't change -- because I know you're going to say, Well betting's all about pitching and stuff like that -- I didn't care who was pitching for me or who was pitching for the opposition. I just made it easy for the guys making the bets and just bet this much every game and that's the way we did it."

Yes, it was only $2,000 a game, a mere pittance! I mean, if you only bet $2,000 a game, you're risking no more than $324,000 a season. Who amongst us doesn't bet that much every year?

I think the real news here is just how kind and considerate that Pete is. Sure, he was supposed to be managing a baseball team, and he had $2,000 of his own money on the line every night, but all he ever really cared about was making things easy on the bookie. What a guy!

Ah. It's great to have Charles Barkley back in full effect. Felt like he left for a little while. Then he comes back white hot, calling the Washington Wizards the "dumbest team in the history of civilzation". Now, he's on the Dan Patrick's radio show (audio below) and stating that not only was ESPN surprising Miguel Tejada with a copy of his birth certificate "bush league" (0:25 and 1:02) but that he would have "slapped the hell out of" (0:40) the reporter if he'd tried to pull that on Barkley.




Barkley's outspoken nature aside, I actually think that's a pretty reasonable reaction. I probably would not be particularly thrilled if anyone decided to pull a Chris Hansen on me re: my age. There are just more tactful ways of going about it, and "groundbreaking" news doesn't necessarily have to be shock journalism.

Via AA

Jeff Idelson -- a dude that works for the Baseball Hall of Fame -- was on the Dan Patrick Show today in which they discussed Barry Bonds' 756th home run ball going into the Hall. But in addition to some chatter about that, Idelson dropped this nugget:

"Have you thought about a steroid exhibit in the Hall of Fame?" Patrick asked. "Brian McNamee says to you, 'Jeff, I've got some vials, I've got syringes, I've got HGH... I'd like to donate it to the Hall of Fame.'"

"There's no doubt that in time we will address steroids and human growth hormones in our museum. It's a part of the game," replied Idelson. "It's a lousy part of the game, but it's part of the game's history...But when we do tell the story, it will be in the context perhaps of good medicine versus bad medicine. It will be done in an educational way. Would we accept artifacts or items from Brian McNamee? I don't know, I mean if it allows us to tell the story in an educational way, we'd consider it. But if it's just to have, I doubt we'd take them."

I suppose this makes sense. The PED area of baseball has been a large -- if not the largest -- topic of conversation these past couple years.ou would think the HOF would in some way address the issue. Good thing they're choosing not to highlight how HGH and the like (allegedly) helped Barry Bonds break the most hallowed record in sports, (allegedly) kept Roger Clemens in top form into his 40s and kept fringe players in the game longer than they should have been. No positive effects here at all.

Because remember kids, steroids are bad for you!

Via the indispensable Biz of Baseball.

I was wondering who would be the first media person to step forward and pick the Giants to beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and it turns out that it's Dan Patrick, formerly of ESPN, now of Sports Illustrated and his own radio show. Patrick appeared on Late Show with David Letterman and made the call:

"I think they're gonna win," Patrick said when Letterman brought up the Giants. "I just think that they've been on a roll. They learned something last time they played the Patriots."

Letterman says you could spot the Giants 60 points and the Patriots would find a way to win 67-60. I think Letterman's view more closely matches what the general public thinks.

The big news in the sports media world this week is that Dan Patrick, the longtime face of ESPN's SportsCenter, is joining up with Sports Illustrated, while Rick Reilly, SI's most prominent writer, is jumping ship to the Worldwide Leader.

It's not quite the Patriots trading Tom Brady to the Colts for Peyton Manning, but it's a big move for both sides. And just as there would be endless debates, after a Brady-Manning swap, about which team got the better deal, that's a good question to ask here.

From a financial standpoint, it appears that everyone is coming out ahead. Reilly's salary has been reported at $2 million, a significant bump from the already hefty salary he was making at SI. Patrick's financial package is a little harder to figure out, since he's getting a percentage of the revenue from his syndicated radio show, but suffice to say that he's doing quite nicely.

But which of their employers comes out ahead?

Here's a development in the "Dan Patrick leaves ESPN" story that I don't think many people saw coming: Neil Best of Newsday reports that Patrick is joining forces with Sports Illustrated, where he'll write a column each week, have his syndicated radio show streamed on SI.com and frequently chat with SI writers.

For SI, it can't hurt to get a high-profile guy like Patrick in the stable. He'll bring traffic to SI.com, and his show will be a good platform for SI writers to promote their work -- right now SI writers pretty much have to go through ESPN, which is in many respects the only game in town.

But it's a little strange that SI would ask Patrick to write a column for the magazine. Sports Illustrated has always prided itself on being a home to highbrow sports journalism -- I've known of more than a couple of SI writers who deride the more fan-friendly approach of ESPN the Magazine. Hiring a writer whose background is working at ESPN -- on the TV side -- is an example of SI, as it so often does, following ESPN's lead. Sorry, No Photos