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John Feinstein, who is best known for A Season on the Brink, the year he spent embedded with former Indiana basketball coach Bobby Knight, has quit the Navy Radio Network after 14 years as a color commentator after the school agreed to do a documentary with CBS about the Army-Navy game — a project that Feinstein, whose book The Civil War chronicled the annual football game between the two service academies, reportedly pitched to CBS in the past, but to no avail.

I have no doubt CBS will do just fine with this. They’ll have the access and they’ll spend the money. They won’t have my anecdotal memory or know some of the stories about past players that I know and I’m SURE they won’t try to claim any of the stories I’ve written or told in the past as their own.

I’m not angry with the people at Army or Navy. This was a business decision. Could they have pushed CBS a little harder to involve me, pointing out that it would benefit the project? Yes. Would that have done any good? I doubt it.

The reason I’m stepping down then isn’t because I’m throwing a hissy fit at being left out. But, as I said in my note to the Navy people, Army-Navy and doing Navy football has never been a job to me, it has been a passion. Doing this documentary would have been a labor of both love and passion and, yes, I believe I would have done it better than anyone else.

So, to be at the games this fall and see CBS there with their cameras following players around; knowing they’re in the locker room with their cameras; encountering people from CBS all the time, is something I simply can’t face. It’s a little bit like dating a girl for 10 years, getting dumped and then being invited to her wedding. I just don’t want to watch it.

Can’t really blame him. Then again, the idea for a documentary about the Army-Navy game doesn’t seem like something that Feinstein alone could have brainstormed. Not involving him, though, seems odd. Hopefully CBS will address the reasons for doing the documentary without him.

 

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ESPN.com boxing reporter Dan Rafael has reached an agreement with Epix to work as a broadcast analyst.

Rafael will call his first fight on June 25 when Felix Sturm takes on Matthew Macklin from the Lanxess Arena in Cologne, Germany.

“I look forward to working on Epix with our expert commentator and great heavyweight champ Lennox Lewis and blow-by-blow man Bruce Beck,” Rafael tweeted.

ESPN basketball analyst Jalen Rose pleaded guilty to drunk driving today, admitting to the judge that he drank six martinis on the night of March 11 before he veered off a snowy road in Michigan and rolled his Cadillac Escalade. When police arrived, Rose insisted he hadn’t been drinking, but roadside and hospital tests proved Rose’s blood-alcohol was above the legal limit. He came clean to the judge on Tuesday.

“I’m embarrassed to say I had six drinks that evening,” Rose said softly.

When the judge asked how large the drinks were, Rose replied: “I’m embarrassed to say probably too big.”

He faces up to 93 days in jail, a $500 fine and court costs when he’s sentenced July 27.

(Source: ESPN)

(Photo: The Smoking Gun)

Dallas Mavericks forward Shawn Marion will be taping the pilot to a reality television series in June called “The Ladies in My Life,” TMZ reports. The show will focus on his mom, sister, publicist and, ya know, other women in his life.

 

 

ESPN NHL analyst Matthew Barnaby was arrested Friday night and charged with domestic violence in Amherst, New York.

WIVB has the details of the arrest:

“Amherst Police responded to a location at 6:15 p.m. and found serious damage to property. The location is being kept private to protect two female victims, who police say were not injured.

The former right winger was arrested and charged with second degree criminal contempt, harassment, second degree criminal trespass, and second degree criminal mischief. Police say after leaving the location, he made angry phone calls, and Barnaby has also been charged with aggravated harassment via a cell phone. Read more

Red Bull, the energy drink that’s carved out a nice niche sponsoring extreme sports athletes and events, has launched a glossy lifestyle magazine in the United States that will premiere its June issue later this week.

The Red Bulletin, which is already published in nine countries, features San Francisco Giants pitcher Tim Lincecum on the cover.

“For most other brands, the commitment is just to the product,” says Raymond Roker, associate publisher of The Red Bulletin and founder of URB magazine, who will oversee the U.S. magazine. But Red Bull’s aim, he says, “is to have a rich conversation with our audience.”

The magazine will target the valuable 18- to 34-year-old male demographic. The question is, do those guys read newspapers, where the majority of the magazines will be featured as an insert?

The AZ Central reports, “The $4.99 magazine will have 75,000 copies available on newsstands. It’s also available by subscription at $12 for 12 issues. But on the third Sunday of each month, the majority of the copies will be tucked inside five Sunday newspapers: Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News, The Miami Herald and The Houston Chronicle. One media buying executive says the brand’s multimedia dream looks more like a pipe dream. Red Bull’s youthful target is the wrong customer to hit with a print product — particularly one that’s inside newspapers, says Debbie Sklar, vice president of print at Horizon Media.

“Are 18- to 34-year-olds really reading newspapers?” Sklar asks.

But some advertisers have bought in. Among those in the first, 100-page issue: EA Sports, Dyson vacuum and Zappos.

ESPN is going “all-in” for the 2011 World Series of Poker.

From July 14-19, the network will offer daily coverage of the WSOP main event, including ‘live’ unedited hole cards on a 30-minute delay and more than 34 additional hours of coverage in high definition on ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPN3.com from the Rio All-Suite Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Every hand will be shown unedited and hole cards will be available post-flop. Coverage will shift between two feature tables approximately every 30 minutes. All “all-in” and “call” situations will be shown at both tables. Read more

In 2007, as newly retired Tiki Barber was floundering in his bid to become the next Matt Lauer, he and his agent met with Tampa Bay Buccaneers personnel — including then coach Jon Gruden, general manager Bruce Allen and Barber’s twin brother, Ronde — to discuss Tiki coming out of retirement to play running back for the team.

“They talked football and drank a little tequila. Gruden came on strong, telling Barber that Tampa needed him to make a playoff run and that he could take three weeks to get back into shape before playing the second half of the season,” reports Ian O’Connor of ESPNNewYork.com.

Barber’s agent, Mark Lepselter, was all for it.

“I was pushing for it hard,” Lepselter said, “because I already knew things weren’t going in the right direction for Tiki.”

Mind you, this was just a few months into his new duties with “Today” and “Football Night in America.”

Alas, Barber balked at resuming his football career – at least at that point. After his broadcasting career flamed out at NBC (and following a very pubic breakup with his pregnant wife), Barber, 36, is once again pursuing a career on the gridiron.

Mike Tyson‘s transformation from ear-biting boxer who offered to eat an opponent’s children to pigeon-kissing vegan is apparently complete. Tyson, whose television series on racing pigeons, Taking on Tyson, runs on Animal Planet, is now starring in a Last Chance for Animals ad campaign that has him kissing a pigeon beside the words “Vegan: Love Animals, Don’t Eat Them.”

Apparently Iron Mike watched the ending of Rocky IV and took Rocky Balboa’s words to heart: “If I can change! You can change! Everybody can change!”

Despite his recent health problems, Terry Bradshaw will return to Fox Sports for the upcoming football season.

Fox spokesman Dan Bell told the USA Today that Bradshaw “will absolutely be back and his role won’t in any way be changed.”

The NFL analyst wrote about his health woes as a result of six concussions and numerous head injures he suffered during his playing career:

Today most athletes rehab after surgery from a knee or shoulder injury. Well, I’m learning how to prevent my brain from getting worse than it is after suffering a career worth of concussions playing football. When I played for the Steelers and I got my bell rung, I’d take smelling salts and go right back out there. All of us did that. We didn’t know any better. You don’t know how many times I was in the huddle, asking my teammates to help me call a play. After a few minutes, I’d be fine and I’d keep playing just like nothing had happened. Read more