The concept of ESPN News was pretty good: We’ll create a sports channel you can visit  any time to see all the day’s highlights.

Sounds pretty good to me. Except that ESPN News is lame.

You’d think a channel devoted to nothing but sports highlights would give you thorough coverage of sports, right?

You’d think.

First of all, the overhead at ESPN News must be pretty favorable. Because they basically air the same half-hour broadcast for 24 hours. So there’s not a lot of labor costs there.

But the thing is, this 24-hour sports news channel doesn’t even show that many highlights. By the time you get through interviews, crappy NASCAR highlights and yak, yak, yak commentary, you only get highlights from about six baseball games.  And you might just get to see the top play of each game.

If you have a channel dedicated to nothing but sports news, shouldn’t it include highlights from every  MLB, NBA, and NFL game? Seriously. Would it be hard to have the show last an hour instead of 30 minutes, which is really about 22 minutes after commercials?

Also, I HATE that canned guitar music they play during highlights. What — do they think my attention span is so short that I need crappy music with my (few) highlights?

Could this guy look more like a dork?

Yeah, I probably should write about how great the Lakers were, and Kobe this and Kobe that, and blah, blah, blah. But, you know what? That game was a dud. A Snooze Fest. A bore to end all bores.

And, besides, B$lim has me on the record saying the Magic would win a thrilling series. So I gotta distract your attention, sort of like ole Dick and George with the Iraqs.

So to hell with basketball championships. I wanna talk about stuff that annoys me. Namely, those tools who refuse to bend the bills of their caps.

I know — I should live and let live. But still, I have a hard time with dorks. In fact, when I see a dude wearing a flat hat, I swear I want to knock it off his head, run away with it, and stomp the holy shit out of it.

Not just once. But over and over and over.

I wanna stick the bent bill in my back pocket and sit on it. I want to drive my car over it. I want to put sewing machine oil in it, tie it up and put it under my bed and then jump on my bed.

Because that’s the way hats are supposed to look. Not like a duck-billed platypus.

Whew. Okay.

(Breathe, Pembertonian.)

Sorry about that. I just, ah, got a little out of hand there. But, seriously, folks. Bend your bills. Anything else is just  not natural.

Here I am -- a real swinger.

I’m not agro or anything, but whenever I see a guy looking for a walk in softball, there’s a small part of me that wants to pinch his head off.

Seriously. Is there anything more lame in life than a guy who wants to get a walk in softball? I mean, we’re talking about slow pitch softball. One notch above tee ball.

And let’s not forget that most leagues only allow little more than an hour per game. So when a guy takes four pitches every time at bat, that sucks up about 10 of those precious minutes. But more importantly, I ask, why?

Why, why, why?

Okay, the rest of you softball players take a breath. Or, better yet, go to the batting cages and hit some balls. After all, you swingers deserve it. Besides, right now I need to talk directly to those esteem-deprived guys who seek walks:

Hey, Walkers. What’s up? So I’m doing this blog entry, right? And it’s not like I’m judging you (so much). But, like, I guess I fundamentally don’t get you. Because, presumably, you signed up for softball because you want to play softball. And standing at the plate, not swinging — well . . . that’s not really playing softball. That’s just sort of standing there. Like a model posing for a photo. Or a confused old person. 

And the thing is, you’re missing something really special here. You see, hitting the ball is sorta fun. When you hit the ball, you get to run, which is also kinda fun. And your teammates clap and stuff.

Walking to first base is sort of like — I don’t know — taking out the trash, I guess. Or getting the mail.

 So, do me a favor: Next time you’re in the batter’s box, take a chance in life. Swing. I don’t care if the pitch is a foot over your head. Swing at it. Hit it. And run, baby. Run like the wind.

And if you strike out trying, well . . .  burying your head in the sand is not a bad option.

Bet these guys never expected to be on ESPN.

During my visit to the Midwest last week, I was horrified to learn that not only does my brother spend inordinate amounts of time playing online poker, but get this: He actually watches poker on TV!

It was especially frustrating when he would surf the channels, pass up a perfectly good baseball game, then stop on poker. And I’m sitting there, thinking, what the hell???

Here’s the thing: Poker is not a sport. See the guys in this photo? Do they look like world class athletes to you? Sure, you might bet on them in a hotdog eating contest. But chances are they can’t throw a baseball 50 mph. Yet, you can watch poker on ESPN, which I think stands for something having to do with sports.

I mean, I understand that maybe they can’t afford to show a baseball game every night. But I’d rather watch a baseball game from 1962 than poker. Hell, I’d rather watch curling than poker. The luge.

Soccer!

Seriously, if you’re gonna show poker, why not Go Fish, Crazy Eights and War. They’re card games, right? Heck, I’d rather see magic tricks with cards. Or a competition where dudes build houses of cards while someone else throws beer bottles at them.

Poker is not a sport, ESPN. Lose it. And to my brother: I love ya, bro, but please — take up the guitar.

No need to show hands in this photo

I get really annoyed when people who never watch sports suddenly get all riled up about soccer.

It doesn’t happen often. In fact, these people ordinarilly never play or watch soccer.  But when the World Soccer Cup comes on, suddenly, they’re all ga-ga about it. They’ll perk up when soccer highlights are on TV. They’ll talk about individual soccer players. They might even have little soccer parties.

And note that I call it soccer. Not football, even though these nerds people will try to argue that soccer is football.

Whatever.

I smirk. I chuckle sarcastically. I mock beneath my breath.

But I think it’s the whole European/international thing. These hipsters like all things Euro, so when the Germans or French start bouncing balls off their heads, they get all excited, as if life could offer nothing better than a 1-0 thriller.

But I say snoooze.

Soccer is the one sport more dull than hockey. In fact, half the game is spent kicking balls out of bounds. The only time there’s a little excitement is when there’s a fight. And even then they can’t use their hands.

No, thanks. I’ll stick to actual football. You know, where whistling fans are happy and wimpy European guys are limited to field goals.

First of all, it reminds me of those nimrods who wear jeans when they play softball. Secondly, it just looks dumb.

Check out Vlad Guerrero here. I don’t know about you, but this isn’t exactly an athletic look. Kinda looks like he’s wearing pajamas. And it just looks so drab, all that gray.

Maybe he does this so he doesn’t have to wear socks. Sort of a California Casual look.

Now a much cooler look can be demonstrated by Reed Johnson of the Cubs. Check out this old school get up:

Stretch those babies!