May 8, 2010 – For most of his distinguished career, there isn’t much bad you can say about ESPN-ABC-and the Washington Post’s Michael Wilbon. As Tony Kornheiser’s perfectly balanced partner on ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption” (Sportscream’s favorite show), he mostly blends quick intelligence, some humor, racial balance, and foil to Kornheiser’s nebishy and often-failed attempts at humor. For their efforts, after doing the show for nine years, they finally won an Emmy this year. Don’t know if it won on merit or because Kornheiser kept ranting about never getting one.

Wilbon is a Chicago guy, Northwestern educated, quick to connect to his roots in the hood, although he lives as white as a Mother’s Day lily in affluent homes in suburban Washington D.C. and Scottsdale, Arizona. He golfs and belongs to country clubs in both places and seems to play in foursomes only with guys he can namedrop: Gary Williams, John Feinstein, Eddie Jordan, Kornheiser, etc. He co-authored a mediocre book with Charles Barkley, that has befriended him to the point of bias toward the round one, and constantly mentions his social circle which includes Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and any other African American celebrity he has used his cache as maybe (along with Jason Whitlock), the top African American sportswriter, to cozy up to. His stock rose when Stephen A. Smith was kicked to the curb, but they replaced a guy with an edge with a guy that goes over the line to be friendly with those he has to cover.

Wilbon has leveraged his minority fame into a bullet-proof area of non-criticism. Although he doesn’t speak before he thinks, like his PTI partner, which has resulted in Kornheiser being sanctioned, fired and suspended, he’s probably the most Chicago-biased sports voice, who at the same time maintains a position as an elite national spokesman. ESPN and PTI may have caught lightning in a bottle by the pairing of the contrasting loud-mouth Jewish boy from Long Island to the Windy City black. Wilbon also may have polished his broadcasting skills, but his reason for being there is that he’s a well-spoken minority with a print background, which apparently is the only option to Syracuse-trained talking heads or ex-jocks.

As a Chicago guy you would think he would have heard of Chicago sportwriting legend’s Jerome Holtzman’s book “No Cheering in The Press Box.” Wilbon goes exactly the other way, after expounding intelligently on one national topic, anything with a tinge of Chicago gets his complete diehard fan treatment. According to Wilbon, the Cubs are winners. The Bears should have drafted Rhodes Scholar Myron Rollle, the Bulls are right there to compete again for an NBA title if they can draft and sign some great players and straighten out that front office. Bears defensive coordinator Rod Marinelli and offensive coordinator Mike Martz are just the antidote for the Monsters run to a Super Bowl, even though they failed miserably together in Detroit. And although he picked the Red Wings to win its series (and the Cup) from San Jose he admitted that he’s secretly rooting for the Wings to lose because he’s “paranoid” about his Black Hawks having to play them.

Which brings us to the single most aberration of the Wilbon psyche. Something good editors and producers ignore, and a glaring gaff to what else could be referred to as a flawed element to Wilbon’s objective point of view. His hate for anything Michigan.

Apparently, growing up in Chicago he resented all Detroit teams as well as Michigan and Michigan State. It’s hard to fathom, since the Bulls handled the Pistons pretty well, although the Pistons did give Jordan fits in his learning years. The Cubs and White Sox have a recent World Series appearance between them, as Detroit has 2004, 1984 and 1968 in Wilbie’s lifetime. The Bears have pretty much handled the Lions, so it must boil down to Northwestern’s getting their heads kicked in constantly in just about everything by Michigan and Michigan State. Oh well Mike, there is the women’s lacrosse team.

Michael Wilbon did say something indirectly nice about Ernie Harwell’s passing this week. Talking about riding in his car with his dad and listening to the radio calls of all the great announcers of his childhood. He probably didn’t have anything nicer to say, after all Ernie was “the voice of Michigan,” and if Wilbon was in Detroit, he was probably hanging with his homies.