Go blog yourself!(SPORTS [biz]) (Website about sports)

• Author: Schley, Stewart

Are blogs ruining sports?

You might think so if you witnessed a late-April episode of HBO's "Costas Now," in which a tirademinded H.G. Bissinger (the author of the book "Friday Night Lights") went off on Will Leitch, the blogger and site moderator of deadspin.com, a catty and caustic website about sports.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The bizarre shouting match (actually, Bissinger did most of the shouting) pitted the erudite sports journalist against the surprisingly reserved Leitch. Essentially, Bissinger accused Leitch of representing everything that's had about sportswriting today, charging that sites like deadspin, which seem to take joy in a sort of depraved mocking of professional athletes, are part of the dumbing down of America that's turning us into a citizenry of cynical, hero-less fans.

The "Costas" episode by itself isn't very meaningful. Like most of the digital detritus that rains down and disappears in a media-saturated society, it's already part of the ancient past. (Save for a few juicy outtakes you can hunt down on YouTube.)

The bigger question Bissinger raises is worth some thought. When blog sites like deadspin resort to their typical snarky depictions of sports figures, what is the impact?

Some background for the under-initiated: As just one example of what goes on out there in sports blogvillc, deadspin on May 4 planted on its home page a digitally doctored photograph of Roger Clemens, shirt undone, smiling blissfully as a near-nude model brandishing a Louisville Slugger lorded over him. FOXsports.com writer Jason Whitlock, describing his view of deadspin, noted the site once published a contributor's post about a prominent (and married) sportscaster who was seen text-messaging an acquaintance about arrangements for a sexual rendezvous.

You get the idea. It's not exactly Frank Deford stuff.

Which I suppose is the point. In my view, dead-spin and its ilk are mere brand-extensions of an overriding ethos that's been around for some time. They get cataloged somewhere in a giant maw of attitude-laden sports commentary that manages to devalue athletic performance and elevate the supposed prominence of the commentator.

In a much less cynical way, ESPN's nightly "Sports Center" commits the exact same act when its broadcasters punctuate...