No One Knows Anything

I find this to be an appropriate topic to kick my blog off with as it relates to the very reason why I have decided to start this blog. The overwhelming feeling that I often have is feeling like I am the only one in the room with either 1. any opinion or 2. a particular opinion on a particular topic. I am not sure if I am a crack pot or an elitist but in either case, I often feel as if I am alone in my position. The specific reason for this post was due to the fact that I was listening to sports radio yesterday and I heard the usually collections of idiots (hosts and callers) dissect how Dice-K was overrated, how he is not a #1 starter, how his pitch count is too high, etc., etc. IMO, all of this is absurd except the observation that he throws too many pitches. None of these heads can predict with any certainty where he is going to be in his next start much less where he will be by the end of the season or beyond. Of course, later in the evening Dice went out and gave up a single run in 6 2/3. This ridiculous banter led me to reflect on the fact that none of the people speaking were experts on anything relevant to the topic. This isn't true only in relation to sports (where it is perhaps best exemplified). It is true everywhere. We live in this world of over saturated media where there are a million narrow casted channels available in both TV and radio that require an obscene amount of talking heads to fill the time. The overwhelming demand for talent has led to an increasing diminished quality of talent which has produced a culture of style and screaming over substance. (See Stephen A. Smith, 1/2 the panels on Hardball, anyone in talk radio) News and the delivery of information is no longer about telling you something that you don't know or more importantly why something happened but simply the stating or the re-stating of something that you already know. i.e. I already know that Dice-K falls behind in the count or nibbles when he gets ahead which leads to a high pitch count. What we don't know is why does this happen or what is being done to correct it.

Question. When was the last time anyone in the media told you something that you didn't know? I have to assume that Roger Clemens is on the juice. Why isn't the media connecting the dots? Where are they from an investigative standpoint on this issue? Why is it that the only new information I get out of this comes from congress. Where is ESPN? Clearly they are holding back because they are a business partner with MLB, no? Isn't this the ultimate conflict from a journalistic perspective when you are directly in business with the people you are covering. Why wasn't there more journalistic pressure on the 2000 election and political conflicts (Larry Craig, War in Iraq (how we got there, why we are still there, Haliburton, etc), Spygate, obscene oil prices and profits, etc. Instead, all we get are a bunch of talking heads who tell us what just happened and speculate what will happen. While there are exceptions to this rule (Jeff Toobin, Mark Fainaru-Wada) the fact is that this should be the charter of the entire industry, not just the good work a select few. I am sure that you will be seeing many more posts from me around specific topics concerning items of the day that are being inanely discussed by the heads.

First up, Cornbread Maxwell's comment that KG is a better Celtic than Larry Bird.......