Raising A Toast

Here's how you know if you like a guy: if Jim Lampley says he's leaving CBS, no one would shed a tear. If Bryant Gumbel says he's leaving HBO, no one would notice. If Bob Costas says he's leaving, period, we might take the day off work to celebrate.

But Dan Patrick is leaving ESPN.

Dammit.

Back before the Worldwide Fearless Leader created an empire upon which the sun never sets, ESPN was entirely the domain of cable sports junkies like me who set our watches by SportCenter. These guys weren't sexy. They looked like us. (Seriously, Chris Berman and Charley Steiner still look like us, bless 'em...) They dressed like us: badly. Better than that, they talked like we wanted to talk. They said the cool little stuff that brought us one step closer to the games we loved to watch.

They clued us in on real sports jargon, not the crap we used to hear and repeat on barstools. For example, unless you played competitive baseball at a high level, you didn't know that the baseball player's preferred term for great hitting was "raking." You didn't know that the football player's preferred term for a concussion was not "getting his bell rung," but "getting his eggs scrambled." You didn't know that basketball players, referring to a great leaper, said that he had "bunnies."

Thanks to ESPN, we know all that and more.

Then there came a cultural revolution. The Powers that Be'ed put Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann together for the 6:00 p.m. SportsCenter broadcast.

You remember: the one and only Big Show.

Just as there can only be one true Dream Team of Olympic basketball competition, comprised of only Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird (among others), there can only be one Big Show, and that was Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann.

Everything before the Big Show was like silent films before talkies, or black and white television before color, or rabbit ears before cable, or anything before the Internet.

Everything since has been paler imitation on top of wholehearted thievery, from the increasingly incomprehensible Stuart Scott to any number of smarmy idiots looking to pad their resume by wearing an ESPN blazer before standing in line to shine Al Michaels' shoes at a network.

Chris Berman, noted on Pro Football Talk.com as one of the faces on ESPN's Mount Rushmore, probably saw this coming a long time ago and gratefully exiled himself to baseball broadcasts and NFL pre-game shows. Patrick, on the other hand, has continued to shine even as lesser talent occupied Olbermann's old chair. But when the two of them were together and live, well, it was must-see television.

These guys were the Rowan & Martin of sports broadcasting (ask yer dad or Google 'em, junior), and every bit as culturally relevant. Their catchphrases got into the public consciousness faster than a sexually-transmitted disease, and they still come to mind easily: "en fuego," "it's deep, and I don't think it's playable," the understated and ultra-cool "gone" in response to some mammoth home run, and my personal favorites, "so-and-so is listed as day-to-day, but then, aren't we all?" and "for those of you scoring at home, congratulations."

But all good things must come to an end. The Beatles broke up. Gunsmoke went off the air. Michael Jackson's weirdness finally overtook his talent. And Keith Olbermann thought that he was John Lennon to Patrick's Paul McCartney, when, in fact, he was only George Harrison at best. He left for the hinterlands of cable-access programming, only recently resurfacing on Dan Patrick's national radio program, kinda like those friendly get-togethers that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have on stage occasionally to kick out some of the old jams and remember how they used to own the world...

...except that it was Olbermann reliving past glories.

Dan Patrick stands atop his profession in a manner unlike any of his aforementioned peers Lampley, Gumbel (hell, either of 'em), or Costas could ever hope to.

The difference is that we genuinely LIKE Dan Patrick, and so do the athletes that he has had the privilege to cover. Who else would even think of bearding Michael Jordan during an NBA Finals the way that Patrick did, or busting Tiger Woods' icy chops during a Masters?

Dan Patrick could do it, because he was genuine in a way that those other guys aren't. Patrick has a palpable passion for sports that bleeds through the television screen to the sports fan. Consider how he has used his position to go after idiots like Bud Selig, or any number of miscreants on his radio show. He is fearless in what he believes about the purity of competition, and this is what the average guy respects.

Dan Patrick gets it.

And now he's hanging up his spurs.

Let's face it: ESPN now is not what it was back in the '80s and early '90s. Back then, ESPN was the outsider gleefully sticking it to The Man. Now, ESPN is The Man.

Maybe Dan Patrick has had a flashback to his maverick Big Show days, and hopes to recreate that with a nationally-syndicated talk radio show, where he can gleefully tilt away at all the windmills that the Worldwide Fearless Leader won't let him attack. Maybe there's more money somewhere else...although it's hard to believe that ESPN wouldn't match whatever offer was out there to keep Patrick in Bristol.

There are reasons for his departure, and, whatever they are, they don't matter because one of the guys who made ESPN cool in the first stinkin' place is leaving.

While I am obviously sad in a very selfish way, I wish him nothing but the best in his future endeavors, and here's sincerely hoping that he gets his nationally-syndicated radio program. (What the hell am I thinking? OF COURSE he gets his radio program...I'm hoping that that is what he wants to do, and that he wants to do it SOON!)

Dan Patrick.

Gone.