The idea that someone — anyone — would manipulate a full hour of national TV to announce that he’s decided to break the collective heart of an entire city is unbelievable. No class, no dignity, no shame. Handled so poorly that I’m almost at a loss for words. “Disgusting” doesn’t really feel strong enough. “Ugly” might be better.

Let us hope that LeBron James is not a sign of things to come. If behavior like his is the future then, well, god help us. Luckily, I don’t think it is. Kevin Durant proves as much. For that he should be celebrated with the same zeal employed to justifiably crucify James.

I’m happy to say I didn’t actually watch the special, but I’ll cop to flipping from the O’s game on 105.7 over to 1300 AM for about five minutes to hear the announcement. Weak, I know. To be fair, though, I spent those same minutes reading this article. Multitasking.

Now that I’m back to the O’s I find that, yep, they’re still struggling. Down 4-2 to the Rangers in the seventh. Damn it. Damn it all.

It’s the slogan — manifesto, if you will — that accents the masthead of the Baltimore Sun. The paper that gave rise to some of America’s finest journalists, from H.L. Mencken to David Simon (among others). The paper that has, at many moments, served as a source of pride for this city and this region. The paper that was once a jewel.

As of today, it is officially a shell of its former self.

Over the past two days, management has laid off roughly 60 staffers including several senior-level editors.

If you’re wondering what this has to do with sports, Rick Maese and David Steele are among the cuts. What’s more, a source tells me that both Maese and Steele were informed of the layoffs while working in the press box at Camden Yards.

Let’s put a big red circle around that: two of the Sun’s most respected and visible sportswriters were informed by phone that they no longer had jobs — while they were working in the field.

It’s unconscionable and inexcusable. No explanation could make that OK. Period.

I’m as sensitive as anyone to the changing nature of the media landscape. I’ve invested countless hours in wrapping my head around it, and I’ve been paid once or twice to help other people figure it out. I consider myself well-versed on the issue, and I don’t make these critiques lightly.

The problem isn’t that the Sun felt the need to make cuts. The problem is the way they made them and who and what they cut.

It’s a classic case of business decisions being made on numbers rather than on-the-ground reality. Good strategy in tough times means doubling down on what you do well and cutting the things that don’t add value. The Sun eschewed that in favor of something that approximates a scorched-earth policy. Get rid of “salaries” with no regard to the individuals who make them and the work they do.

Call that simple opinion if you will, but consider this: Sun editor Monty Cook recently gave a speech declaring the need for the Sun to stop being a newspaper and become “a digital media company.”.

Tuesday’s layoffs included reporter Andy Ratner. His beat was blogging and digital media.

Nobody wins. The Sun has saved some money but is a weaker paper for it. The people who depend on the once venerable institution now receive a product that is far less trustworthy than it was just a few days ago.

I honestly don’t know where all of this leaves us or where we’re headed next. Something resembling stability will eventually emerge, but in the meantime we’re bearing witness to some truly dark times.

Read his original post on it here.

Hate is a critical component of sports fandom, so much so that I’d argue sports can’t function without it. We need to define the “other”, to not only have teams and players we are for, but to have those that we are against. And, in fact, it’s a concept that extends far beyond sports — the notion of the “other” is a key component of academic culture studies. It is, as you might expect, both a good and bad thing.

This contest, though, is all good. I love the idea of trying to figure out — amongst names like Bonds and Clemens and Woods and Jeter and Coach K — just who most deserves a good, solid whack. I’m way into the idea of having fun with the idea of what we’re against in sports, as opposed to the more traditional approach of just whining and bitching and going negative all the time.

The plan, I believe, is to narrow the list down to a field of 64, seed them up, and go from there. So feel free to fire away with your own ideas about both who should be on the list and who would be your Final Four/Champion. Let’s see where it goes from there.

The CC post pretty covers everything I would. I have a great deal of sympathy (pity?) for Tejada. It’s completely out of line for the government to go hard after a guy who kinda sorta might have told a completely inconsequential lie.

At some point, the steroid investigation became baseball’s equivalent of red light cameras. It stopped having anything to do with the people it’s supposed to help (fans, players) and became all about gratifying the most venal urges of those in seats of power. Disgusting.

Hey, maybe AndyMac will trade Bedard today? Yeah?

George Mitchell has no regard for my schedule. He has decided to release his steroid report at the same time that I’ll be waist-deep in helping evaluate final projects, rendering me helpless in the face of what figures to be some serious breaking news. Indeed, rumors are are already running rampant.

Given that disadvantage, I’m opening up the floor from now until tomorrow evening/night for anything and everything related to the report. I fully expect an Oriole or two to be named, making this a big Baltimore story. So take the comments section of this post and run with it. I’d like for this to be the absolute best place for Baltimore fans to turn for quality discussion, and I have no doubt you all will make it that and then some.

I just hope the news isn’t too bad. For us, that is. I won’t shed a single tear if Derek Jeter‘s name turns up. Nope.