I have a hunch we’ll be talking some Penn State and hopefully healthy doses of O’s and Ravens as well. But! We won’t stop there. This isn’t strictly a sports show so if you’re lucky you’ll get to hear my mellow, dulcet-toned reflections on all kinds of relevant topics.

I’ve been watching Sports Show lately. That’s a surprising enough statement in its own right, but the thing that’s really kind of shocking is that the show is actually funny.

Comedy Central’s latest attempt to mix jocks and jokes is now more than halfway through it’s initial 8-episode network order, which in the genre of sports comedy means it’s already defied the odds and come out a winner. As ESPN’s Patrick Dorsey pointed out in April, mixing sports and comedy has long been a fool’s errand, and no one has been able to do it successfully yet. Comedy Central was the most recent failure in the field with Onion Sportsdome, which as NBC elaborates was nearly unwatchable. I think Sports Show has much more going for it than that program though, and more than all the other sports shows on the ratings rubbish pile. Here’s why I suspect it will succeed where so many other fail:

• Format. To me, Sportscenter is unwatchable- as are most programs on ESPN. I can barely even make it through Baseball Tonight. These programs are so fast-paced, with so much text crowding the screen and so many technical effects that they start to blur within a minute or two. ESPN seems bent on airing as many highlights as possible and providing context for none of them. Sportsdome lived by aping this format, and died by it as well. Applying the Daily Show format to sports is the most obvious answer, and it may also be the best. So far, Sports Show has come closer than any other to approximating it.
• Talent. Norm MacDonald is a top-tier comedian. He was there during the last golden age of SNL, and has had a fairly successful movie career in supporting roles. He may seem to have not done much lately, but he has been a working comedian and comedy writer for 25 years. The man knows how to tell a joke. Can you remember who hosted Sportsdome? Yeah, me neither.
• Writing. The Sklar Brothers are also pretty funny professional comedians. They headline tours and record CD’s and star in cable specials and all that good stuff. Still, their terrible sports-themed show was a huge failure. In part, it failed because there was minimal writing. The concept was just two guys sitting on a couch riffing on sports clips, à la Beavis and Butthead. It was the kind of thing that makes for an okay podcast, but not a very good TV show. In addition to MacDonald himself, the show has done well to hire professional writers, and it comes through on camera. Being so new, the show is still figuring itself out, and that’s part of what makes it fun to watch. The punch lines are often not the most predictable joke, which is why they work so well.
• Political Incorrectness. Okay, so… this show is pretty racist and sexist. You almost don’t notice it if you’re watching Tosh.0 as the lead-in, but a lot of the jokes are based on ethnic and gender stereotypes. As I say though, they’re well-written jokes delivered by a professional comic, so they’re actually handled very delicately. Lines are approached, even stepped on, but not crossed. Much of the humor leaves you thinking you might be offended if you weren’t laughing so much.
• Time Slot. Sports Show is a pretty natural fit between two of Comedy Central’s highest-rated programs ever, Tosh.0 and The Daily Show. The network also seems to be not repeating past mistakes by beating viewers over the head with endless reruns and promos. Pro athletes will always continue to have affairs, catch weapons charges and say stupid things, so there’s an endless supply of material out there if the show can keep harvesting it and the network continues to let them.

What do you think? Have you seen Sports Show yet? Would you watch it again? Maybe you prefer a more scripted sports-comedy format like Eastbound and Down or The League. Perhaps you like sports-themed movies like Major League, but have sworn off TV for good. Whatever your take, let’s hear it in the comments.

Today’s news that he’s rejoining the broadcast team has me straining to recall what he was like during his last tour of duty. I can’t do it. I’m pretty sure he didn’t bother me, though, so I’m happy to welcome him back.

But if you’re out there, Mike, pay attention. There is one commandment above all others that I — and all right-thinking Orioles fans — demand from our color guys: be weird.

Don’t play it straight. Don’t try to bring Gary Thorne back down to earth. Don’t play yin to Palmer‘s yang. The O’s have a grand tradition of weirdness in the booth and part of your job now is to uphold that tradition.

I don’t know if you’re up to the task or not. It’s not an easy thing. But you’ve got the baseball knowledge for sure so I figure you’re starting from a solid foundation.

Reach for the stars, Mike. Reach for the stars.

Hit up 1370 AM on your radio dial or go to fox1370.com to listen to the live stream.

In Why are you so terribly disappointing?, San Francisco Chronicle writer Mark Morford barrels head-first into an issue that sometimes keeps me up at night. To wit: our wonderful and burgeoning New Media conversation is in danger of running off the rails.

The column is quite worth reading, but if you don’t have time the gist is this: there is entirely too much bitching and whining going on.

Not that you needed either me or Morford to tell you that, but I’m impressed with how well he makes the case. Particularly this passage:

Not only are we disappointed, we need to express it. Vent it. Hiss it and spit it and hurl it like fistfuls of mental manure at the great wall of hey, screw you.

As Morford points out, this attitude is everywhere. In blog posts and articles and, particularly, in the comments below them. Part of it can be attributed to the widely-held misconception that attention equals value. The fastest way to create attention is to stoke anger. People slow down to see the accident. The more gruesome it is, the longer their eyes linger.

Another part of it can be attributed to a growing idea that because something can be said, it should be said. That the existence of a forum is itself a reason to speak.

It is time — past time — to call bullshit.

I get frustration. And over a few beers watching a game (or whatever) I’m as likely to talk a little shit as anyone. Maybe even more likely. But those are moments of release, casual good times. It’s nothing to build on.

Not “at least to me” or “in my opinion.” It’s nothing to build on. Full stop.

Criticism is good. Debate is good. But they are only good when they are well-considered. If they aren’t, they obscure and water down the efforts of people who take the time to actually say something.

We’re in the midst of a heavy transition. The means by which people gather and assimilate information are changing rapidly. In the process we’ve lost a lot of filters. In some ways that’s a good thing, but it comes with a price.

Don’t feed the trolls. An idea as old as the internet itself. It’s time to expand that idea and understand that it includes anyone whose sole goal is to aggravate others or draw attention to him/herself. It’s time to pay more attention to becoming curators of our own media experience, and to share what we learn.

That’s the only real way to ensure the survival of quality content and the relegation of sub-par work to a dark corner where, if we do our job well, it will silently, finally, suffocate.

Wishful thinking? Probably. Every little bit helps.