your right on about Tony, whose radio show on ESPN is great, and as a sports/entertainment columnist for the Wash. Post, was even better (he still writes but he's slipping). He never interviews athletes on his show because, he says, who wants to hear an athlete talk? he got that right. I'm less enthusiastic about Wilbon, who seems to have ordained himself the defender of the black race. But he's way better than average.

you like jim rome?!

keep up the great work!

I'm one of those people who jumped all over Bob Ryan, and I don't consider myself a moral hypocrite. First, I don't think he should lose his job. I'm cool with the suspension. The hypocrites in that arena are Byron Scott and others in the NBA who'd call for Ryan to lose his job, while still employing the wife beater himself.

Second, the reason I jumped all over Ryan is because he's one of those loud-mouthed fans who masquerades as a sports television "personality". His actual sports writing seems fine, but he's really an asshole on TV. If Ryan wants to create a career for himself as a big mouth, he should be able to take the heat when his mouth says something offensive, which it did.

Maybe it's different for guys, but as a woman, I don't find it funny when men joke about smacking a woman. So I think Ryan deserves his suspension, but I think he should keep his jobs, even the ones where he's an annoyance on my TV screen. I've been changing the channel on him for years.

I do like Jim Rome in the sense that he makes good points and is sometimes a decent and entertaining wordsmith.

My problem with him is that he caters to an audience of dopes. And the smug, perma-scowl image he's crafted gives off an I-know-all-the-answers vibe. What I like most about Kornheiser is that part of his charm is that he does not watch all the games and does know know every player from every sport.

If a title like Rome is Burning, with flames fanning in the background of commercials, isn't imflammatory, what is? Do we need sports commentary that promotes itself as inflammatory?

ESPN has the whole spectrum of sports talk shows, from the good(PTI) to the awful(Sports Reporters). I'd throw Around the Horn somewhere in between. Lupica kills the Sports Reporters because he is unbelievably annoying.

More on Ryan: My problem was with people who called for him to lose his job. As if another paper wouldn't have hired him the next day. As if a friend of theirs never said he wanted to smack someone. As if Bryon Scott, who's been in the NBA for two decades, hasn't seen basketball players who actually smack their wives not lose their jobs.

If people have issue with joking in any sort of way with domestic abuse, that's another story.

But what about the point he was trying to make. Is she a phony? Is she prostituting the kid? I say, don't blame her. The television director decides which fans to show.

PTI is a great show and I beleive, the hosts are knowledegable and don't jump on bandwagons (see Bill Walton). Truly a great show

I haven't heard the name Tony Kornheiser in years. I loved his Sunday column (I used to read it in the Denver paper, before I moved to BFE). I don't think it was about sports.
He was hilarious.

PTI is a great show??!! Are you kidding me!! This show is the without a doubt the worst show in the history of television. The other day I was watching this train wreck and Kornheiser and his Wilbon were doing this "Good cop/bad cop" routine. Kornheiser was wearing a policeman's cap and these big, huge, mirrored sunglasses like D`Annunzio wore in the pool scene in Caddyshack. Kornheiser spent the entire segment yelling at the top of his lungs while Wilbon stared at him in stunned amazement. What a mess. This is good TV? Watching two nobodies babble incessantly for two minutes at a time about some irrelevant sports topic is bad TV. How about having a informative discussion instead? I almost passed out when I read the Kornheiser makes over $500K. Kornheiser must have naked pictures of one of the ESPN bigwigs. That guy infuriates me to no end. Think about it, does he ever say anything insightful? Is he funny? The answers are no and no. Don't confuse yelling and screaming with intellect, fellas. And what's up with that combover?? A one inch strip just above the forehead...what's the point? Give it up, Tony. YOU ARE BALD! You're not fooling anyone. And while I'm venting, what's up with that "Duke" guy on Kornheiser's radio show? A grown man paid to read sports scores every 20 minutes? Are you kidding me? I bust my butt everyday just to scrape out a living and this guy gets paid to read boxscores? This is his job? He doesn't even do it well. Please tell me, what else does this guy do?