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Back in March of this year, I wrote a post asking why Justin Timberlake of all people would be hosting a sports awards show. Justin is typically annoying, but I’ll be damned if he didn’t crack me up a few times during the telecast (and I actually only saw HALF the show). There was a little comedy piece they did with Terrell Owens and Brett Favre crying that was hilarious, i’ll try to hunt down the video for you guys.

Update: Here’s the vid! Courtesy of Awful Announcing

Anyways in case you missed the show, here’s a full list of the 2008 ESPY Award winners.

Special Awards

• Arthur Ashe Courage Award: John Carlos and Tommie Smith, 1968 Olympic medalists
• Jimmy V Award for Perseverance: Kevin Everett, former Buffalo Bills TE
• Best comeback: Josh Hamilton, Texas Rangers

Best in Sport

• Best Female Athlete: Candace Parker, Tennessee Basketball/Los Angeles Sparks
• Best Male Athlete: Tiger Woods, Golf
• Best Moment: “Great Sportsmanship” (Central Washington University’s Mallory Holtman and Liz Wallace, Western Oregon University’s Sara Tucholsky)
• Best Team: Boston Celtics
• Best Coach/Manager: Pat Summitt, Tennessee Women’s Basketball
• Best Game: New York Giants over New England Patriots at the Super Bowl
• Best Championship Performance: Tiger Woods, 2008 U.S. Open
• Best Play: New York Giants Eli Manning’s pass to David Tyree at the Super Bowl
• Best Finish: Western Kentucky over Drake in the first round of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, winning on a buzzer beater by Ty Rogers
• Best Upset: New York Giants over New England Patriots at the Super Bowl
• Best Breakthrough Athlete: Adrian Peterson, Minnesota Vikings
• Best Record Breaking Performance: Brett Favre, Green Bay Packers
• Best Sports Movie: Semi-Pro
• Best Male College Athlete: Tim Tebow, Florida Football
• Best Female College Athlete: Candace Parker, Tennessee Basketball
• Best Male Athlete With a Disability: Ryan Kocer, Wrestling (Wagner, SD)
• Best Female Athlete With a Disability: Shay Oberg, Softball (Montana State-Billings)
• Best International Male Athlete: Rafael Nadal, Tennis
• Best International Female Athlete: Lorena Ochoa, Golf

Individual Sports

• Best Baseball Player: Alex Rodriguez, New York Yankees
• Best NBA Player: Kobe Bryant, Los Angeles Lakers
• Best WNBA Player: Lauren Jackson, Seattle Storm
• Best NFL Player: Tom Brady, New England Patriots
• Best NHL Player: Sidney Crosby, Pittsburgh Penguins
• Best MLS Player: David Beckham, Los Angeles Galaxy
• Best Male Action Sport Athlete: Shaun White, Skateboarding/Snowboarding
• Best Female Action Sport Athlete: Gretchen Bleiler, Snowboarding
• Best Bowler: Norm Duke
• Best Driver: Jimmie Johnson
• Best Fighter: Floyd Mayweather, Boxing
• Best Golfer: Tiger Woods
• Best Jockey: Kent Desormeaux
• Best Outdoor Athlete: Captain Scott Smiley, Mountain Climber
• Best Male Tennis Player: Roger Federer
• Best Female Tennis Player: Maria Sharapova
• Best Track and Field Athlete: Tyson Gay

Sponsored Awards

• Hummer “Like Nothing Else” Award: George Martin walks across America (I wonder if they give a “Hummer Like Nothing Else” trophy at the AVN awards too?)
• Under Armour Undeniable Moment: Warner Robins, Georgia beats Tokyo to win the Little League World Series Championship Game with a Dalton Carriker walk-off home run in the bottom of the 8th inning (extra innings)

Although the NFL season only technically lasts four months, the amount of offseason work players endure turns their job into a year round affair. Every spring, each team has voluntary workouts and mini-camps for their players to condition themselves for training camp (which takes place later in the summer).

Each year, there is an inevitable case of “player x” who chooses not to participate in the voluntary workouts. More often than not, “player x” is painted in a negative light by the media (and sometimes his team) by not showing up to a voluntary team function. This doesn’t necessarily mean the player doesn’t want to get in shape, some guys simply choose to train privately or in a close knit group with others.

What really gets on my nerves is how choosing not to show up to a “voluntary” function instantly means you’re “selfish”, “lazy”, “disgruntled” or “uncooperative”. I was watching SportsCenter the other day and the topic of the moment was “Why Isn’t Kellen Winslow Attending Voluntary Workouts??”… Hmm… maybe he isn’t required to be there and exercised his right to do whatever the F’ he pleases.

The simple solution for NFL teams would be ….. if you want the guys there… make the offseason work outs mandatory and be done with it.

Is there some CBA rule prohibiting NFL teams from doing this?

In the last month or so there’s been a lot of “mainstream media vs. bloggers” talk in the sports world. Much has been made of if bloggers pose a legitimate threat to newspapers and magazines etc. Much has also been made of the “offensive, irresponsible, juvenile, and incorrect” content found on sports blogs.

Unlike most people, I really don’t think theres much of a difference between mainstream media and blogging aside from foul language. The only reason theres no cursing on ESPN is because they have advertisers to appease and they simply can’t get away with it. You can bet your ass that if I had a six or seven figure contract with Coors or Nike you wouldn’t see the word “shit” here again. But since I don’t…fuck it.

I’ve been paying close attention to ESPN in the last two months and I SWEAR to you, a great deal of their content looks and sounds like material straight off of a blog. Sure, they clean it up and polish it for their zillion viewers, but the heart of the content is no different than ours in most cases.

About two weeks ago, Sports Center led their broadcast with a teaser of Ozzie Guillens “foul mouthed rant”. They hung the hat of the entire broadcast on the fact that viewers wanted to hear Ozzie cursing…..sounds like a blog to me. Let’s not even get started on the “top 5″ lists that are ran several times within an hour show.

That brings us to today…. and a three minute discussion on whether or not an NFL kick returner can escape a bear on the field. The “Worldwide Leader In Sports” reduced themselves to discussing strategies with Antwaan Randle El on how to juke a grizzly bear on the 50 yard line. I won’t lie… it was entertaining… but it was also something you could probably read on With Leather or Kissing Suzy Kolber.

*edit* As I type this… ESPN’s Trey Wingo is discussing pictures of Tony Romo partying from TMZ.com on NFL Live.

[Shout out to Awful Announcing for the vid]

Jay-Z will be representing the New Jersey Nets at the 2008 NBA Draft Lottery, which is set to air live May 20 on ESPN at 8pm. This is ALMOST enough to make me watch the lottery, which has proven year in and year out to be horribly boring television.

But seriously… unless Jay jumps out of his seat and throws up the ROC, then the evening will somewhat uneventful.

“This is very exciting and I hope my nickname “Lucky Lefty” holds up,” Hov said in a statement.

The Nets only have a 1.1 percent chance of landing the top pick in the draft held June 26. This is the first time the team has been in the draft since 2001, the season before Jason Kidd teamed with Richard Jefferson and Kenyon Martin to lead the Nets to back-to-back NBA Finals appearances.

Three months ago, a person known only by the username “Ampex2000″ on YouTube began uploading less-than-flattering videos of Chris Berman. The videos which can be viewed here depicted Berman being a complete and utter asshole to the crew on ESPN between takes.

Well it looks like the same thing is happening to Bill O’Reilly of Fox News. In the following video of O’reilly you’ll see him completely LOSING IT when he doesn’t understand something on the teleprompter.