With the Tigers visiting, Kay seems to go out of his way to make the Yankee’s trade of Austin Jackson to Detroit look like a good one. Every time Jackson steps up to hit, Kay reminds us of his penchant to strikeout. Kay accurately called Jackson’s first at bat in the series, a strikeout. There’s no mention of his speed, youth, his .300 batting average as a rookie regular, or Jackson’s ability to field and throw. When he opened Wednesday night’s game with a first-pitch homer off C.C. Sabathia, Kay continued to find it hard to compliment the rookie. He also kept citing former Tiger, Curtis Granderson’s hitting swoon stats, while the Yankee centerfielder continued to field and hit his way like an All Star. At the end of the opener to the series, Kay was first to say Brett Gardner’s slide into Tiger second baseman Carlos Guillen “was clean” (which it was) before telling viewers that the game was over on Derek Jeter’s GIDP, which Guillen masterly turned, despite Gardner going for his knee. Guillen missed the next game, and one wonders what Kay would have said if Jeter had been the victim of such a slide.

What’s worse, David Letterman showing reruns while he takes summer vacation, or Bob Ryan and Dan LeBetard subbing for Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon on “Pardon The Interruption?” The answer resides with Ryan on PTI. Known as a great guy and a hall-of-fame Boston basketball writer, Ryan isn’t easy to criticize. It’s just that he’s so tongue-tied, stammering and bumbling that he makes Shannon Sharpe sound articulate. Ryan’s false sense of trying to be “Kornheiser-like” rings hollow throughout the show. From his curmugeon imitation right down to waving the Canadian flag, Ryan shows no signs of originality. At least LeBetard has carved his own niche as a worthy sub. For most of Ryan’s responses you get the blathering of a guy whose brain is two steps ahead of his tongue. You’d think the boys club at ESPN would have a better option and more respect for one of sportswriting’s greats.

While we are on the subject, here’s hoping that Michael Wilbon’s vacation brings him back to earth. Wilbo who makes no bones about hanging with Isiah Thomas, Charles Barkley or Michael Jordan must be taking ego lessons from them. Like the Jamaican portrayed by Keenan Ivory Wayans on “In Living Color,” Wilbon has four jobs that we can count, which have inflated his bald head and removed him from the ranks as one of TVs best spontaneous opinions. On top of his daily PTI duties, Wilbon writes books (Barkley’s Bio), writes for The Washington Post, and is a basketball analyst for ESPN/ABC. The exposure has knocked him out of whack.

Lately Wilbon has taken positions away from his usual pandering Chicago soap box where anything Chicago or Northwestern rules, to designate Alabama’s Nick Saban as a “hypocrit,” Floyd Mayweather and Lane Kiffin as “cowards,” Terrell Owens as “more disliked” than LeBron James and New York City as “overrated.” He’s also leaning into the “post racial” debates brought on by the election of fellow Chicagoan Barack Obama, to become a voice for African American injustice everywhere.

Wilbon is a Cubs fan who, when convenient, roots for the White Sox. He claims after the Black Hawks brought the Stanley Cup to Chicago this year to be a long-time fan, regularly going to games as a kid with his dad, probably being the only black people at Chicago Stadium. His bias against anything Michigan comes from years of Northwestern dominance and lately he’s screaming ‘that New York thinks its so much better than it is, right down to the restaurants.’ As more privilege has been bestowed him over the past few years, he has abandoned what got him there–a sensible point of view, unbiased reasoning and the ability to articulate spontaneously. Now all we get are his grumpy takes on everything with his second-rate Chicago spin.

While we are on the topic of grumpy spin, Tedy Bruschi the former Patriot and now ESPN NFL ‘insider,’ is over-the-top about Brett Favre’s return and Rex Ryan’s Jets. Bruschi couldn’t see any integrity in three Viking players going to Hattiesburg, Mississippi to “beg” Brett back. He also couldn’t see any integrity in Brad Childress enabling this drama and critically compared him to Bill Belinchek, who wouldn’t put up with it for a minute. Following the Giants 31 to 16 win over the Jets last Friday, Bruschi practically screamed that the Jets had won the battle and that the Giants had so much further to go to be competitive. Any fan can see that preseason games can be interpreted favorably for the homer team when factoring in injuries, holdouts, substitutions, first teams against fourth teams and so on. Nothing like getting Bruschi’s “expert opinion” that doesn’t make any sense.

And finally, here’s a jeer to two of ESPN’s lead color men, Sunday Night Baseball’s, Joe Morgan, and Monday Night Football’s Ron Jaworski. There’s nothing like watching the Yankees every game and then getting Joe Morgan for a Yankee game on Sunday night. Master of the know-it-all, and restating the obvious, Morgan comes into town, does a quick study, then spouts trends about players that only he can see. Morgan will tell you that ‘Jeter is looking for something to pull’ when we all know Jeter swings inside out and and tends to go to right. That Alex Rodriguez is looking for something to get his arms extended, or that Robinson Cano is a “good hitter” and Mark Texiera is a “good fielder.” It’s enough to make you go and tune in Michael Kay.

Ron Jaworski talks too much. Here’s another good guy, but someone who has taken his residing in proximity to NFL Films to new heights in film study. Couple this with the sing-song, beginning-middle-and-end, soundbites and it gets old quickly. Because Jaworski is well-liked, he has reign from the producers to monopolize the booth. The trouble is it’s too much like film study. Every play the quarterback makes seems to have Jaworski’s comment; (Part one, the beginning) Jaworski: “The square out is a very difficult pass for the quarterback to throw.” (Part two, the middle) Jaworski: “You have to have a very strong arm and be in synch with your receiver.” And, (part three, the end) Jaworski: “You have to be accurate and put the ball where only the reciever can catch it.” Back to you Jon and Mike.

For those wise people who chose to ignore this show on NBC back in 2007 while it sought its time slot and audience, and resulted in its being slated for cancellation, you may have been right all along. A near miracle chain of events rescued the show, not the least of which was Hollywood’s desperation for programming.

Somehow, someone took a look at the early seasons, the critical laudits, the appealing story lines, the terrific casting and characters, the history of the franchise from successful book to movie, a talented TV production team, the appealing demographics from 18 to 54, and a new digital model was founded — satellite provider Direct TV would share production costs with NBC and each would share non-competing broadcast schedules.

Not only was the series rescued after the production was stopped due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, it was extended for what will be a five-year run of 13 episodes each. The fourth season recently aired its fifth NBC broadcast episode. Somewhere the producers and especially writers Patrick Massett and John Zinman lost their connection to the inspirational triumphs that dominated the earlier storylines and now have turned Dillon, Texas into a bummer.

Drawing such conclusions at episode five, with eight remaining, could be risky and trecherous critiquing. But predictability, slowness and sadness has taken over the FNL writing room. Since the season is “in the can” as they say, and I haven’t seen it, I’ll go out on the limb and predict that if episodes 1 to 5 are any indicator, we can expect a mostly mopey, left-to-our-own-conclusions resolution of the warm characters from Dillon.

Everything starts with Tammi (Connie Britton) and Eric Taylor (Kyle Chandler) who now work at separate Dillon high schools, Tammi as principal of the West Dillon Panthers and Eric as a teacher and football coach of the recently re-started East Dillon Lions. Despite what is in every paper in America today concerning education funding and tax cuts, the disparity between East and West is as clear as the Lions’ mud-dust, patchy field and the Panthers fieldturf stadium. It’s logic like this that the writers want educated viewers to believe in to further their plotlines. In one town, with one tax-base, one school has everything and the other has nothing. Apparently we are supposed to believe its the Texas high school boosters that make the difference. What a mountain East Dillon has to climb. Woe is the Lions.

This logic continues through the cast plots and makes for a deluge of suffering for Dillon East. West’s QB lives in a mansion and drives a new Jeep, while it took three games (all losses) to find an East QB and his mom may be a crack whore. There is a lot of time spent on relationships where one partner is older than the other. Last week, Julie Taylor (Aimee Teagarden) watched her beau Matt Saracen (Zack Gilford), a graduated, one-time coach Taylor QB, drive off to who-knows-where? Certainly no place logical. Maybe he’ll get a job on a BP oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico?

The writers wasted our time by introducing John Diehl as a Eric-Taylor-replacing-father-figure-famed-local-artist, a foil to fledgling artist Matt, who seemed to have some promise to move a character holistically beyond high school and football, but fumbled. The writers did succeed in giving Gilford a tour de force script concerning the death of his father, which may be award-worthy, if not, at the very least, succeeding in sending him away from FNL on a high note concerning his acting ability.

Tim Riggins (Taylor Kitsch) struggles with the loss of football in a more typical way. In the same episode as Matt parting from Julie, Tim parts from Lyla Garrity (Mrs. Derek Jeter) who is busing her way back to Vanderbilt, while Tim views his dim future with babes throwing themselves at him. Up to now, Riggins is another bummer in a sea of bummers. He is a reluctant former hero, who realizes he may have peaked in high school and it seems to bother him. Trusting the writers to lead him home is another matter.

The writing on the show has not had any success with any former players. There’s a wheel-chair-bound former quarterback being a sports agent in New York City, and a running back having success at Texas A&M, but after that, nothing.

Riggins’ plot line will be a challenge to the writers, but after five episodes there’s no sign this will end up pretty. Expect his auto shop to go south and for him to get in trouble with Becky Sproles (Madison Burge), his landlord’s underage daughter.

The most underused character in season four is Landry Clarke (Jesse Plemons), smartest guy in school, Matt’s best friend since they were five, former garage band leader with a quirky girlfriend who has vanished into lesbianism, placekicker, mostly second stringer and less-than-middling athlete that coach Taylor calls “Lance,” forced to Dillon East by districting, son of the police chief who’s likely to never appear again, and self-defense killer who commanded episodes in the past, not-to-mention the inspirational boyfriend to Tyra Colette (Adrian Palicki) who he helped tutor into the most unlikely University of Texas acceptance ever and off the show. Landry remains one of the writers possible redemptions. There may be a reason he was tutored by Matt and practiced throwing a football into the tire target in Matt’s yard.

As said above, the Dillon East Lions haven’t won a game, the radio guys are picking on them and the Panthers use them as humorous material. Perhaps we are moving toward an East-West showdown? I wonder who wins? The writers have given the viewers the joy of a state championship and the agony of coming up two points short for another.

A showdown between East and West with Panthers golden-boy and and hated QB J.D. McCoy (Jeremy Sumpter) going against Landry and season four’s new stars Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan) and Luke Cafferty (Matt Lauria) is the inevitable finale. An episode where lovable and hatable Buddy Garritty (Brad Leland) could (along with Eric Taylor) exact some revenge from villainous rich-guy Panther booster/overboard sportsparent Joe McCoy (D.W. Moffett).

For those of us faced with committing to another 21 episodes we are holding out hope that some semblance of the old “feel good” will resurface. Decision making may be suffering from the 13-person writing team and the three executives that were there from the start, Brian Grazer, Peter Berg and David Nevins. I envision artful arguments about logic, about what a viewer can take away without being said on the screen, about providing a glimpse of real life and spontaneity. But this is a crew that has cast the ugliest baby in the world to play the Taylor’s infant daughter, Gracie. Can we trust them to provide us with 21 more?

In Ann Arbor, they determined that the Wolverine football team had practiced too much and had too many assistants to spot during lifting sessions and fetch balls during drills. The thinking was that Michigan was gaining an advantage or overworking their student athletes. Thank goodness for the NCAA enforcers, says nobody but their on-field resenters and rivals.

While the NCAA took three years to look into the University of Southern California athletic program, O.J. Mayo recruited himself, had a “friend” nearby at all times that had special access to practices and needed tickets, and saw to Mayo’s out-of-the-gym lifestyle. Head coach Tim Floyd was forced to leave the program and Mayo spent a year before becoming a top NBA draft choice. Heisman winner Reggie Bush contributed to a national championship while allegedly having a “marketing agent” provide cars and other “support” while locating his parents in a sweet, rent-free house. Brian Cushing allegedly poked his skin with performance enhancers that went back as far as high school and continued in LA, and Pete Carroll jumped to the NFL this past off season after years of NFL job offer denials.

Now USC can’t play in the post season for two years, will lose something like 20 scholarships, will have to give back a national football title and maybe Bush’s Heisman. Probably harder to do than giving up Kim Kardashian.

Jim Calhoun’s UCONN basketball juggernaut was exposed as being out of his control. His buddy Jim Boeheim’s basketball program produces good teams on the floor, but apparently they don’t go to class. The NCAA is particularly good at exposing these kinds of flaws, and pointing to the the “clean” programs as good examples, but somehow those programs get left out of their 64+ team bonanza every March, while the Syracuse’s, UConn’s and USC’s prosper.

So it’s a good thing that will emerge from the new “Super Conference” alignment because these conferences will dictate how national champions are determined, how bowl money is distributed and who takes the cake when it comes to television contracts. All of the NCAA lawyers, investigators and bureaucrats in Indianapolis will be rendered obsolete and that’s a good thing.

Kay utilized his ESPN PR arsenal and had Winfield on his radio show as an ESPN-promoting guest, where the former six-team hall of famer came off as artriculate and lucid, prompting Kay to go into a complimentary spiel of how good Winfield is on radio as opposed to television where he then used Mushnick’s explanation word for word.

Mushnick’s mention in print launched Kay into a rant against Mushnick on his ESPN radio show and a challenge to match up Mushnick’s column with Kay’s broadcast. Mushnick consented and “wasted column space” (his words) on explaining the details for the first time publicly. Kay and his ESPN PR hackers, I mean, backers decided it wasn’t going to provide the tape, as promised, and dropped the matter. Win by TKO for Mushnick.

And so, we are afforded another glimpse into the ESPN media machine where anyone they put on camera is “an expert” and what they say is gospel. Which is why it’s humorous that NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers slammed Tony Kornheiser as being unprepared and Ron Jaworski as not knowing what he was talking about. Funny how a media writer can get pushed back upon by the ESPN PR machine, but a star Green Bay Packers quarterback can get away with his credibility while talking the truth. I guess there’s not much to be gained from taking on a professional whose integrity is a given.

Now, Kornheiser has since given up his Monday Night Football gig, although the availability of John Gruden probably had something to do with it. Not to mention that Kornheiser took a buyout from The Washington Post, and had taken a sabbatical from his local Washington D.C. radio show to only do ESPN’s “Pardon The Interruption,” and “MNF.” He seemed to go through a mid-life crisis, some minor health problems, creeping into old age, whining about things, telling us how early he went to bed and pretty much admitting that his heart wasn’t in it.

Kornheiser has become the arbiter of bland. Recently he told us how great the band “Sugarland” is, he’s kept us up on his thoughts about “American Idol,” and missed the Steven Strasburg debut because he had tickets to Carol King and James Taylor. Ho hum Tony. You are old.

What we get out of Kornheiser these days are inquisitive references to youthful trends and “urban speak,” stories about having dinner with with John “Junior” Feinstein, golf with Maryland basketball coach Gary Williams and trips to his beach house in Rehobeth Beach, Delaware. Very retiring. He no longer goes on the road, covers the games or talks with his cronies that include Mike Lupica, Mitch Album and Bob Ryan (unless he’s a subhost on PTI).

While Kornheiser’s “American Idol” is losing lots of steam with the public, so is PTI, as partner Michael Wilbon transitions from an elite African-American sportswriter with an impeccable resume, to a hanger-on to Charles Barkley, an invitee to Michael Jordan’s gambling and golf party on Paradise Island, a bi-coastal (Scottsdale, AZ) yuppie and a biased Chicago sports fan. Where once you could count on him for an objective and intelligent point of view, he has now reduced himself to wonder. Wondering how he can have an intelligent opinion if a Chicago team happens to factor in, which they do in every sport. Wilbon thinks he can beat this by admitting outright of his Windy City bias, but it became clear how much of a phony he is, when he talked about how big a Black Hawks fan he was as they approached the 2010 Stanley Cup, after having never mentioned them before.

Which brings us to ESPN’s ‘bosses of bias’ as LA’s Jim Rome blows with the wind with every Lakers win (“you guys are good, and Kobe is god”) or loss (“come on Phillip, change something up, the Lakers are dogs”) and Bill Simmons, the sports guy mayor of Boston. Aside from the referees, these two guys are the biggest annoyances of the 2010 NBA Finals and should have David Stern command a gag order and fine. Neither guy enlights. All we will get is how personal losing will be to them. At least they both have plenty of familiarity with that condition.

The way the business works is like this, when someone does something good, like win multiple Oscars or make a few good movies, or, in “Treme” auteur David Simon’s case, when you lay down a good TV series, you get to do whatever you want. With these two shows, that doesn’t necessarily mean that what they get to do is good.

In the case of “The Pacific,” Steve and Tom have mistakingly expanded on the success of “Band of Brothers,” which had a plot, characters and a backdrop of history which appealed to the war buff in all of us. Both geeks, who probably still have their army men, draw extensively from the filmmaking realism and technical and explosive expense that they first showed us with “Saving Private Ryan,” when Spielberg won best director.

That was the movie that taught us all the lesson, “never let an enemy (Steamboat Willie) go free when at war. Because he comes back to kill you (in this case, Hanks, as John H. Miller, the guy sent to save Private Ryan (Matt Damon, who had lost two brothers in the war) at the end of the movie.” Too bad “The Pacific” doesn’t have anything as meaningful to say.

“The Pacific” is ten episodes of good battle gore, glimpses of the realities encountered by those at Guadalcanal, Peleliu and Iwo Jima, but scant more. There are no investments in any of the key characters, even John Basilone, a guy we already knew, on whose field in Bridgewater, NJ we played New Jersey state lacrosse championships for years, and now at my carwash in Jersey City where a signed portrait of the medal of honor winner sits by the cash register.

This is an indulgent order of ten events, poorly using three characters to string it together, with the bombs bursting in air and the ramparts red glare, in some semblance of history regarding the war in the Pacific. It was nice to be reminded of the sacrafice my uncles and their peers turned in during the 40′s, too bad Spielberg and Hanks and the accolades directed at them, got in the way.

Reviewers tend to cite the real interviews with WWII vets that open the episodes as the only truth to the segments. We should have known, when as a promotion for the event on HBO, veterans were invited to Washington D.C. to commemorate. Hanks and Spielberg paraded out front and camera center, large distances from the soldiers and wheel chairs. They looked like JFK Jr. privately saluting or placing a wreath, the war experience being a private tribute to them for making the movie. As Taps and the national anthem were played, Spielberg watched without removing his ball cap.

David Simon, who won my allegiance for “The Wire,” has a new vehicle, “Treme,” that best demonstrates how success can sell the the next project. There is is very little else to say about “Treme” without repeating that New Orleans is a great American city, that it got the shit kicked out of it by Hurricane Katrina, and that it has great food and music. Simon pretty much employs the entire “The Wire” and “The Corner” casts in Treme, while he strangles the life out of New Orleans, in his failed attempt to somehow have some success outside of Baltimore.

The former portly reporter from the Baltimore Sun, now affects sunglasses, a stingy-brim hat and, is that an earring? Simon’s gone Hollywood, by way of the Crescent City, his new passion for music replacing the wires, the drugs, the schools, city hall, the docks and the Baltimore Sun.

There are no plotlines that give you that feeling of “can’t wait for next week.” Khandi Alexander can’t find her brother? John Goodman as a YouTube phenomena? Steve Zahn as a politico? Will Bunk find his trombone? Will Clark Peters put his tribe back together? Will Kim Dickens’ restaurant go under? Will the piano player lose his fiddler? This is what Jerry Seinfeld meant when he pitched a show about nothing.

The arrogance that’s built from sitting in front of the press game after game for years is also one of Donavan McNabb’s flaws. He compiles his good stats (five championship games in 11 years) and inflates them into a sense of entitlement that overlooks the fact that he could never win the big one. Not to mention choking when the chips were down. Chances are the Eagles will be just as good with Kevin Kolb. Sending McNabb to a division rival may turn out bad, but a #37 pick is really about what he’s worth, despite what he wants to continue to tell us.

Just when Tiger Woods is ready to tee off again, Tiki Barber steps in to fill the fillopian gap. Barber, who quit football early for a cushy TV gig used his “good guy” image to broaden his NBC assignment. We heard how well he treated his mom. How tight he was with Ronde. And of course, how in love he was with his wife and her family, whom all lived together in Manhattan splendor. Now he’s dumping his wife, pregnant with twins, for an NBC intern half her age.

Wonder how much of that $6.1 million Charles Rogers owes the Lions, he has in the bank? This is the gift that Matt Millen keeps giving. Lawyers aren’t talking, but there’s some hope that the money was put in escrow until the dispute was settled.

Good for Tom Izzo to join company with John Wooden and Mike Krzyzewski by making six final fours. Wooden did it with the aid of Alcindor and Walton. Coach K has his pick of the McDonald’s team every year. Izzo did it with mostly homegrown talent. Bad for Izzo to tell reporters after losing to Butler that Duke would beat them handily. Good for David Letterman to point out during an interview with Butler coach Brad Stevens, that Izzo took the bus home early.

96 teams in the NCAA tournament? Like this is a big surprise. To paraphrase one of our favorites, Tony Kornheiser, “one of the smartest guys in sports, Don Ohlmeyer, once told me, ‘it’s always about the money.”

So Duke returns to its perch as the most persecuted team in the land. Not really. You’d have to be a dope to not respect Coach K, Duke’s academic reputation, and their formidable record. Sure they get the kids they want. They follow the rules. They still play white kids, and they glow about the experience in Durham win or lose. The trouble with Duke is its media imbalance. Mr. Vitale might as well be captain of the cheerleaders. Mike Patrick had to be taken off games, even though he lives close by. And Coach K has like Jim Boeheim, Rick Pitino and John Calipari, become parttime sidekick to the insiders led by Kornheiser and Wilbon and the extensive ESPN crew.

As executive producer of these Olympics, Ebersol is the epitome of the past. It’s like there isn’t anyone else but Ebersol or his boy Don Ohlmeyer who can put this stuff together. Ohlmeyer now works for ABC/Disney/ESPN, so Ebersol will be on his own.

How hard can it be to pick producers, directors and on-air talent and then conduct a spending and egofest from within their broadcast center? If you got close enough to see them in action, you’d think the medals were meant for them and their talking heads. At 63, with Comcast coming in, it may be time to let the former Roone Arledge protege and chairman of NBC Universal Sports and Olympics move on.

Meanwhile, we’ll get a familiar look at the Olympics with Tim Ryan, making everything sound like a lazy winter Saturday (zzzzzzzzzz)afternoon as he calls Alpine skiiing; Tom Hammond making Figure skating sound like a horse race; and third-rated golf host (behind NBC’s Jim Nantz and ABC’s Mike Tirico), Dan Hicks, calling Speed skating. There’s very little elite or creative in the NBC broadcaster lineup, even top hockey voice Mike Emrick was a slam dunk because he does the low-rated NHL package for NBC. In the studio, NBC leverages its football deal with Al “Do You Believe In Miracles?” Michaels doing his first Olympics in over 20 years as daytime host, to Bob Costas’ stale nighttime work. Newsman Lester Holt, high jumper Dwight Stones and never-will-be Jack Whitaker, Jimmy Roberts, are on the Sportsdesk to keep us updated on the breakneck pace of the action, which NBC intends to delay three hours for everyone on the Pacific coast to stay fresh. Homely Andrea Kremer (that’s a typo, meant to say ‘comely’) will chase speed skaters with her microphone as former target Dan Jansen provides color. To round out the group, Ebersol pulled Cris Collinsworth from his football crew and pulled Dick Button from the Ramble to be “correspondents.”

Expect plenty of plugs for Jay Leno and NBC’s “Parenthood,” a Ron Howard-Brian Grazer production of the semi popular movie. Also expect a struggle to gather audience, much overplayed news worthiness, a spike in Netflix rentals, and as much as a $200 million loss in revenue. Now there’s something Comcast can’t take to the bank.

Viewers are left with two exposed sons, one, Paul Jr., with less inate talent than he thinks; and Mikey, an emotionally stunted lazyboy, who blew off the perfect gig; as well as a father, 25-years sober, who picked a costly fight with his offspring, to prove that he was the boss. A third son, who took over the original iron working business, is also said to be on the outs with his father.

Paul Sr. is now paraded around the talk show circuit by a fawning surrogate family, as he tries to enhance his brand by opening European dealerships, featuring Ducati cycles at his new OCC center in Newburgh, New York, and writing a forgetable book that maps his path from a drug-addled greaser and iron worker to a lucky maker of customized cycles. His handlers are also party to the fiction that Paul Sr. is what makes it all go. The dysfunction is deep in the world of Teutel and no one seems to be able to figure their way out.

Mikey still has his TLC paycheck, but he’s now portrayed as desperate and forlorn. He’s tried to entertain his audience as an artist, piano player and now, a stand up comic. He sprinkled in rehab time to address his fight with alcohol, while his father, a veteran of those wars, ignored him.

Paul Jr. is a cocky sort who felt his talent would take him far. Actually, he hired a manager and Paulie’s career is now exclusively in his handler’s hands and the results have fallen woefully short. Since departing from OCC, Paul Jr. tallies his TLC contract as well as an ownership stake in OCC as his main income. A speculative venture into real estate and a women’s boutique in Montgomery, New York fell flat. His main idea of marketing is developing a logo, which is his claim to fame at OCC, and now at “Paul Jr. Designs” which robs from the Brunswick bowling logo and adorns his gaudy truck and a closet full of T-shirts. So far, “PJD” has painted up a Coleman tailgating grill and searches for clients.

What TLC has succeeded in bringing to the American public is a heartless quality demonstrated to his offspring by a patriarch, and a spoiled and bitter resentment displayed by sons to their father. Resurrecting this mess with “state-of-the-art” cycle building will not do the trick to bring back the show’s popularity.

The key rests with Paul Jr., who seethes with resentment on the screen. Mikey is so pliable and needy that any peace branch offering will do. Paul Sr. also seems to indicate just under the surface that he’s not supposed to tangle with his progeny; that carrying on this way makes him look like an egomaniac without a concern for the welfare of his children. An “F” in Fathering 101.

It’s Paul Jr. who needs to grow and somehow be given the responsibility for OCC’s success that he’s long coveted. How he will overcome his “take-whatever-he-can-get-away-with” attitude and run a company by his example is a tall order for even those dreammakers on cable cable television.

Maybe Paul Sr. can have a health issue, or perhaps a motorcycle mishap, or a desire to retire, where Paul Jr. can come to the rescue? But what is most likely is that senior cannot let go of control and junior doesn’t have the stuff to run the popular company. In that case, turn the channel.

He seems to be okay when he has time to think up controversial ideas for his column, like he did this week when he said the Lions should trade young star wide receiver Calvin Johnson. Sharp believes the Lions are eleven players away from competing and that trading Johnson will get the them the picks they need to get there.

He’s not quite as good as a regular on Jim Rome’s ESPN show. He has some trouble thinking on his feet, which is a requirement of TV, and mostly comes off as a crackpot. You can always expect him to spout out about a negative position…Tiger is done as an adman…Notre Dame is a joke…Rich Rodriguez is wrong for Michigan…the Tigers shouldn’t have traded Granderson. He’s the guy, that while everyone is bonding together in sympathy for the loss of Badboy Bengal, Chris Henry, wrote the column pointing out all his transgressions and called for not deifying Henry, instead linking him to Pacman Jones and Michael Vick.

Sharp is far from being a leading voice. The Lions need three guys on offense and maybe three on defense. Tiger will come back, as will Notre Dame and Michigan. Granderson couldn’t hit lefties or in the stretch and Chris Henry is a cautionary tale, one of hundreds of young, wealthy and talented American kids, who was snuffed out too early.

What Detroit needs now is someone who looks at things like the glass is half full. There is misery there and Drew Sharp writes about it and in doing so becomes part of the problem. Its time to turn it around.

2. Steve McNair – Former NFL Quarterback
Paid the costliest price for fooling around.

3. Rick Pitino – Louisville Head Basketball Coach
The image of Rick doing it on a tabletop with his aide standing by is sleazy enough. Doing it with an assistant’s wife lends credence to a dark Louisville basketball social life.

4. Steve Phillips – Former Mets GM and ESPN Expert
It’s not like Steve didn’t have a history of swinging it in the Mets front office, which helped cost him his job and future opportunities. Phillips cheated on a lovely wife with a convenient ESPN grunt.

5. Jamie McCourt – Dodger’s Owner
Caught in Israel cavorting with her bodyguard. She single-handedly knocked the Dodgers off their competitive progress.

6. Michael David Barrett – Erin Andrews’ photographer
Not only did he creepily stalk the flaunty and flirtatious Andrews, he drilled peepholes and placed cameras to capture the naked sideline reporter. He gave newfound credibility to female sideline reporters. The homily (Shelley Smith, Michelle Tafoya, Andrea Kramer), the arrogant (Pam Oliver, who thinks she’s hot based upon how many players have hit on her. PS… There’s a reason they always shoot her from the waist up) and Suzy Kolber (still living off the Joe Namath thing).

7. Dwayne Wade – Miami Heat basketball player
Only through court documents did we learn he passed an STD to his partner.

8. Ben Roethlisberger- Steelers Quarterback
Although the claim is still being legally disputed, Ben allegedly took a page out of the Kobe Bryant playbook and asked a Nevada hotel employee up to his room to fix his television before he allegedly forced her to test his bed.

9. Charlie Weis – former Notre Dame football coach
Used one of his final media ops to cast aspersions about USC head coach Pete Carroll, a married, family man, that Carroll was shacked up with a USC grad student in Malibu.

10. Shaquille O’Neal – Cleveland Cavaliers basketball player
In another alleged story, Shaquille O’Neal is accused of carrying on with Gilbert Arenas’ current or former fiance. Naughty emails between the two have been posted, although they could be easily fabricated. Laurie Govan, Arenas’ girl, is a friend of Shaunie O’Neal, who recently filed for divorce from Shaq in California citing irreconcilable differences. The affair between Shaq and Govan has allegedly gone on for years.

Our apologies to dog killer Michael Vick, crooked referee Tim Donaghy, liar and steroids user Alex Rodriguez, and gun-totin’ thigh shooter Plaxico Burress, but your scandals just weren’t sexy enough.