This is a tad outside our beat, but Tony Kornheiser is taking a buyout at the Washington Post after 29 years of covering sports for the paper.

Kornheiser significantly raised his profile as the irascible co-host (along with fellow WaPo writer Michael Wilbon) of the exceedingly watchable Pardon The Interruption on ESPN. He parlayed that gig into a spot as irascible color man in the Monday Night Football booth and a host of other opportunities.

We could blame him — and the success of PTI — for the disaster that is Around the Horn and all the other unwatchable talking head sports programs, but we'll settle for saying that without Kornheiser (and Wilbon) breaking into the television world, Rick Reilly wouldn't have jumped to ESPN.

Kornheiser's dislike of blogs also led inexorably to the Buzz Bissinger/Will Leitch dust-up.

FishbowlDC, who's been doing a bang-up job covering the buyouts, has more.