ESPN is not a meritocracy

Legitimate post coming tomorrow. In the meantime, let's all chuckle at the pumpkinheaded idiot pictured on the right:

I wanted to post a clip of his BBTN appearance from earlier this evening but I couldn't find it. All you really need to know is that he and Karl Ravech (bless that man's soul for having to deal with the Kruks and Fernando Vinas and Schillings of the world) were discussing Brian Wilson's injury, and he (Schilling) pointed out that Bruce Bochy will now have to go with a "bullpen by committee," and Ravech corrected him and pointed out that he must have meant closer by committee, and Schilling agreed and corrected himself, and then eight seconds later went right back to discussing the difficulties associated with managing a bullpen by committee. Then, asked to explain what the loss of Wilson means to the Giants, Schilling said something like

I mean, what he means is everything you just saw right there. The passion. The heart.

when in fact, the viewers had not seen anything related to Wilson leading into the segment. No highlights, no interview footage, no obnoxious Taco Bell commercial. Maybe Schilling was watching one of the above in the minutes leading up to the taping of the segment, and then assumed that all the viewers would have seen the same thing right before the segment aired? In any case, I get that doing TV journalism is probably way harder than most people think it is, but facts are facts: Curt Schilling should be strapped to a rocket and shot into deep space. Or at the very least he shouldn't be allowed on the BBTN set. Maybe let him work the ESPNNews desk between midnight and 5 AM or something.

As for my snarkity snark snark headline, I'm not saying there's anything shocking or inappropriate about the fact that ESPN pays a braindead zilcheroo like Schilling to try to talk about baseball. Just look at who gets paid to talk about football on every outlet that broadcasts it and it's easy to see that all over the sports media world, being a former player is just as useful a career advancement tool as having interesting things to say and knowing how to form complete sentences. But man... Schilling really takes the cake for being uninteresting, unlikeable, and extra stupid.