When you promote something, aren't you supposed to make it sound appealing?

It's all over but the crying in Boston right now, about five minutes left in game 6 and the starters are headed to the bench with the Heat up 20.  Coming out of commercial, I'm greeted by Scott Van Pelt, telling me what happens on my TV once the game is over:

Coming up on Sportscenter, Saturday night we'll be in South Beach thanks to LeBron James's magnificent performance.  Magic Johnson helps us break it down.  We will hear from the winners, the losers, and of COURSE, Stephen A. Smith.

Like I said earlier this week, God only knows why they've rehired S.A.S. after finally freeing themselves from his bombastic yelling a few years ago.  If you're going to bring him back on board, I suppose you've got to use him.  That's fine.  I just find it really funny that any promo could possibly include the line "and of COURSE, Stephen A. Smith" unless the beginning of that sentence was "ESPN pays all kinds of morons to talk about sports, such as Trent Dilfer, Rick Sutcliffe..."

And as I type this, there's the S.A.S. Prometheus promo again.  Life is good.

Joe Torre: Still Smarting, Apparently

From Stephen A. Smith's piece about how classy Joe Torre is and how un-classy the Yankees are:

Nearly a year after his unceremonious departure from New York, the former Yankees manager's occasional body twitches and stoic demeanor pretty much validate the stinging effect a kick in the backside inevitably leaves behind.

So wait: Torre's body twitches reflect the fact that he willingly left his previous job? It seems to me that Torre gave the Yankees a reasonable kick to the backside, seeing as he turned down the offer of managing a pretty good team which he had taken to the playoffs twelve years in a row.

If I were a professional writer, I might drop "pretty much" from my repertoire.