HR Derby is a white man's world

Via Awful Announcing.

Reilly Final
by bsap11

Regardless of whatever Rick Reilly says -- and Reillo and I go back and forth, some days I want to be his child, some days I want to see him dead -- the Derby was one for the ages anyway. Jayson Stark has the skinny on it in today's column.
(Random unrelated note: Remember when Baseball Tonight was the best show on ESPN? Gammons, Stark, Harold Reynolds, etc. ... the best analysts on the network, the most fun show to watch. Now? They replaced their talented analysts with know-nothing hacks, many of them -- Steve Phillips, Eric Young, some dude named Destrades -- because they were ... I'm not sure. Former players or executives, I guess. And in the process, Baseball Tonight became like every other show on the network -- a bunch of big names who have no idea what they're talking about. Great.)

Anyway, some more links for the morning.
-- Cecil Hurt opines about the Stabler situation.

(A)s long as Stabler maintains his innocence on the current DUI charges (he does have two prior convictions in alcohol-and-driving cases in 1995 and 2001), he’s being given as much benefit of the doubt as Alabama can give him. He’s not being permanently replaced, for one thing. Tom Roberts, a truly good person and a team player, is clearly an interim choice in the booth, unlikely to serve more than one year in the color analyst role regardless of the outcome of Stabler’s case.

-- As noted before: PMR has a great running series about some of the crushing defeats in Alabama's recent past -- I think it's important to know where we've been before we can go forward (it's why I wrote the 13 Levels of Alabama on my old LJ). Here's his latest: the '06 Arkansas game, or Leigh Tiffin's Personal Nightmare.

-- SMQ reviews what could be for the Auburn-West Virginia tilt in late October, which has the potential -- obviously, a number of things must happen first -- to be one of the most anticipated Thursday-night matchups ever. It should be fun, regardless.

-- EDSBS is threatening to show up for the Duke-Vanderbilt game dressed like the guy from Monopoly.

-- Finally, The Wiz blogs about two important things: a) he's apparently a respectable journalist during the day (or rather, the night) and b) he apparently lost his job due to downsizing. Yikes. I feel your pain, man. I feel it.

wlh