LIVE BLOG SNEAK ATTACK! Yes, it’s the one baseball event before September that’s actually somewhat enjoyable to watch. Or at least it would be if Berman didn’t force his shtick on everyone throughout the entire telecast. You know he’s spent the entire afternoon memorizing suburbs outside St. Louis so that every home run he has something stupid to yell out. “THAT ONE’S HEADING FOR CHESTERFIELD!” Oh, how you must die, Berman, you don’t even know how you must die.

We’re in the slowest stretch of the offseason now: the dreaded post-draft period. There’s no football on, and there won’t be football on for quite some time. You’re angry. You’re hateful. We understand. At KSK, we’re hateful too. Of all things, at all times. Hating is what we do best. So, in that spirit, I’d like to present you with our new off-topic (or on-topic this week) offseason feature…

THIS WEEK IN FUCK YOU.

Every week or so, we’ll be taking our lack-of-football-related depression out on any number of deserving targets: people, things, abstract ideas, group dinners, etc. It’s just the kind of cathartic invective we excel at. This week, BERMAN.

You know, we’ve made fun of pretty much everyone at this site: King, Simmons, Easterbrook, players, coaches etc. Barely anyone has escaped our scorn. But I’ve never devoted an entire post here to how much I fucking can’t stand Chris Berman. Oh sure, I’ve bitched about him in Gamebooks and what not. But the fact is that Berman, like John Madden, has been so mercilessly picked apart elsewhere (particularly, in Berman’s case, at Deadspin), that we never had a solid chance to give him a proper reaming here.

Well, that ends today.

Because when I heard about the absolutely fucking abominable news that Berman was going to give Ralph Wilson’s Hall of Fame induction speech, and that ESPN apparently has no problem with it, I just about lost my shit. Now, I have no beef with Wilson himself for picking Berman. He’s an old man who can’t fucking read. I wouldn’t be surprised if Berman had also managed to talk Wilson into putting him into his goddamn will. Old people are easy to manipulate like that. That’s why I always target them when I need to steal prescription drugs.

But I’d like to again take you to Peter King’s take on this piece of news:

In the days when the Bills were the lowest team in the league, Berman always boosted the team. You can judge whether a TV host should be rooting for a team, but regardless, Wilson, Marv Levy, Bill Polian and Jim Kelly loved him for it.

I will judge. IT’S A FUCKING ABORTION. Okay? Berman is host of a national program that is meant to cover every team in the league. That’s his job. It’s not his job to single out one goddamn team for special treatment. It’s not his job to be a frontrunner who decides to boost whatever team that has an ownership he happens to be close with. But that’s exactly what he fucking does. And now it’s come to this, where he’s so tight with one league owner that he is allowed to personally induct him into the Hall of Fame. Would ESPN stand for this shit if it were Dan Snyder he was inducting? Or Al Davis? Jerry Jones? Would it be appropriate for Berman to give Jerry Jones a public endorsement like this?

“What Mr. Jones has done for pro football and for the city of Dallas and the state of Texas, it’s hard to put into words.”

Because that’s EXACTLY what he fucking said about Wilson…

“What Mr. Wilson has done for pro football and for the city of Buffalo and Western New York, it’s hard to put into words.”

Really? Okay, well I’ll put it into words. Here’s what Wilson did for pro football. He owned the team for fifty years (good, I guess), he helped fold the AFL into the NFL (very good), and he presided over the Bills’ four straight AFC titles (very good). All arguably worthy of the Hall of Fame.

But don’t give me this bullshit that somehow Ralph Wilson helped make Buffalo some incredible utropolis. Unemployment in Buffalo is currently 9%. And the team may flee the city for Canada within the next few years because the economy in Western New York sucks and because Wilson doesn’t want to build a new stadium with his own money. Oh, and Wilson doesn’t even FUCKING LIVE IN BUFFALO. He lives in Grosse Pointe, Michigan.

But I wouldn’t expect Berman to note any of those things. And you know why? BECAUSE HE’S A FUCKING CLOWN. Like Peter King, he’ll happily use his media platform to boost the image of anyone smart enough to crony up with him. The worst example of this was when he was forced by ESPN to return a championship ring that 49ers’ owner Eddie DeBartolo gave him.

In 1991 Berman accepted a 49ers championship ring from DeBartolo, only to return it after taking some flak for it, within and outside ESPN. “I know one thing,” Berman says of DeBartolo. “The league misses him.”

Oh it does, Chris? It misses having one of its owners be a convicted felon who openly bribed a sitting governor? FUCKING BULLSHIT. The reason you think the league misses him IS BECAUSE HE’S YOUR FUCKING BUTTBUDDY AND HE LET YOU IN THE FUCKING CLUB.

Make no mistake: Berman isn’t doing this Wilson induction just out of charity. This is, without question, his first official campaign stop for his own Hall of Fame candidacy. If you don’t think this asshole is buttering up everyone in hopes of one day being officially immortalized as part of a game that he is only supposed to COVER, then you’re out of your fucking mind. Watch the speech. Berman will say, “No one circled the wagons like Ralph Wilson.” This isn’t a prediction. IT WILL OCCUR. And what purpose will that line serve, other to again make Berman more of the focus than whatever subject he’s talking about? He’s going to try and get into the Hall. And I bet you he succeeds, because no one is able to communicate the importance of Chris Berman quite like Chris Berman. “I built ESPN myself!”

I can’t stand it. Look at what this fuckface said on the occasion of his 30th year at ESPN:

“Just don’t call me a personality,” he said. “What is that? That’s a morning disc jockey. I entertain, but I take what I do, the journalism part, seriously. Sportscaster, that’s fine. That encompasses all of that.”

Oh, you take it seriously? FUCKING BULLSHIT. If you had taken it seriously, you never would have accepted that ring from DeBartolo, and you never would have accepted Wilson’s request to have you speak. THAT is what a journalist would do. I know this, because I make fun of journalists on a daily basis.

“You know,” Berman explains, “these [athletes and executives] aren’t enemies to us. We get into sports because we like the games and we like the people who play them.”

WRONG. You get into sports because you like the games. Nowhere is it in the sportscaster manual is it mandated that you LIKE everyone and anyone who plays them. That’s fucking shit.

”Maybe what we’re supposed to be, to quote Woody Allen from Broadway Danny Rose, is friendly but never familiar.”

Again, FUCK YOU. You ARE familiar. Enough so that one owner sees fit to have you induct him into the Hall of Fame. What fucking distance are you putting between yourself and your subject when you do that? The Bills weren’t even always your fucking favorite team. You were a season ticket holder for the goddamn JETS. So what genuine reason do you have to like the Bills, apart from the fact that they have an owner vulnerable enough to grant you access?

“It almost goes to, you know, ‘Are you a journalist?’ With the stuff [I] learn all the time, it isn’t like, ‘I have a scoop’ or anything like that. I may not have a scoop, but I [get it] right. I mean, ask the people I work with. Go ask Belichick or [ Philadelphia Eagles coach] Andy Reid. My job is different from the guys at the network who have to be pit bulls. I mean, I’ve got information that can sink countries. I just don’t need to bury banana republics every day. It’s not my M.O.”

“I’m a really important person who has really important information, but I’m too important to divulge it.” That’s the essence of how Berman operates.

And so, allow me to sum my feeling up to Berman thusly: FUCK YOU. YOU FUCKING SELF-AGGRANDIZING SACK OF SHIT. YOU COULD GIVE TWO SHITS ABOUT NFL FANS. THE ONLY THING YOU GIVE A SHIT ABOUT IS WHO AND WHAT HELPS ENHANCE YOUR GODDAMN PROFILE THE MOST. THAT’S IT.

I fucking hate this man. I hate all his fucking nicknames. I hated his “Nickname Show” where he explained the etymology of how he derived those stupid nickames. Curtis “My Favorite” Martin was inspired by a TV show? GTFO! I hated his old Roy Firestone interview where he lectured everyone that “postage stamps and newspapers are still the two greatest bargains in our world.” What the fuck is Roy Firestone doing interviewing you, anyway? I hate the “Fastest 3 Minutes in Sports,” a segment that tells me NOTHING, other that the ESPN production truck has a “star wipe” option.

I fucking hate him tipping draft picks every year. Right before the Vikings drafted Percy Harvin, Berman said, “Here comes the Vikes’ pick, and it might be someone unexpected.” Oh, aren’t you just so coy, you goddamn hot air balloon. “Let me ruin the suspense of the pick, but phrase it in a way where I sound both cute and prescient.” DIE.

I fucking hate The Schwam. That whole fucking segment. Who the fuck is rooting you to end the season over .500, YOU FUCKING CUNTSTAIN? No one, that’s who. No one wants to see your big fat head wearing a goddamn turban. No one wants to see that ass old footage of your at Bucs training camp, although it helps explain why the Bucs belong to that small suite of teams (Jets, Packers, Bucs, Pats, 49ers, Bills) that you give favorable coverage to. No one wants to see that footage of you singing on stage with Huey Lewis and The News. You’re a fucking embarrassment. I guarantee the biggest thrill you get is when you go to some retarded celebrity golf tourney and people clap for your drives.

Just don’t call you a personality? THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT YOU ARE, AND YOU’RE A LOUSY ONE AT THAT. You’re a morning disc jockey, asshole. You’re a goddamn mascot. Just know that, if you get into the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Fame will cease to be anything close to a credible enterprise. Just know that there are people out there who clearly recognize you for the enormous fucking fraud you are. You think you’re some kind of institution. You’re not. YOU’RE A FUCKING DOUCHELICK AND I HOPE THE NEXT LEATHER-CLAD WHORE YOU PICK UP WHIPS YOU UNTIL YOUR ASS BLEEDS, YOU COCKBIN.

I fucking hate Chris Berman.

Someone dipped into the deux-deux-deuxs pretty heavily this morning. It’s like his hair was going to stay in place and then WOP!

Maj said Boomer has obviously been drinking his TrimSpa brand fortified wine. I say he is only the latest victim of the array of diseases Leinart is spreading around Tampa.

UPDATE: “Why you intelview the knee? It go tark funny!”

Many people scoff at the idea that God can control the outcome of sporting events, or that He even cares. But those people are wrong. God does control the games, AND He cares a great deal. Today, He explains why He let the outcomes of Week 4 in the NFL happen as they did.

First of all, happy new year to all of my chosen people out there! Except for that one fucking yid. You know, the blowhard asshole on ESPN who is always making up crappy nicknames. Oh come on, you know the guy I’m talking about. Big fat lump of shit that’s always laughing at his own jokes, even though his shtick got old around the time those no good fuckers started penning that “new” testament. Me damn it, what the fuck is that asshole’s name?

Anyway, let’s move on to the other stories I’ve helped influence over the past week after the jump. Why the jump? BECAUSE IT IS MY WILL!

BERMAN! That yid’s name is CHRIS FUCKIN’ BERMAN! Me damn I hate that douchebag. That assclown has the nerve to work on Rosh Hashanah in direct defiance of my wishes, and then he has the nerve to wish the chosen audience a happy new year? Fuck that shit. You have two choices Berman, you can be a Jew who celebrates Rosh Hashanah and drops a “shana tova” on all the choicest hook-nosed PA’s, or you can be a glorified gentile who works on the high holidays and slings pork sandwiches for a donut shop. So maybe one of these years you could take off the ONE NIGHT A YEAR I ask of you. I know you’re not opposed to the laziness inherent with staying home from work, I see what you do when you’re doing your “homework” for the show. Masturbating and falling asleep in your custom oversized bathtub is not how a professional prepares to go on television as some purported expert (except for Erin Andrews, and even she only does that in my Godly dreams). And seriously, I didn’t give you people anal orifices so you could go shoving turkey legs up there. That’s just sick and wrong.

Speaking of mortals that piss me off to no end, Shaun Alexander really needs to get fucked. Listen you dumbfuck, you really need to stop praying to me 20 times a day. Sometimes I have shit to do up here. You know Al Davis isn’t just going to give himself an inoperable brain tumor. That shit takes time. My time. And I can’t concentrate on that kind of thing when you interrupt me every half hour to pray for a new contract or to heal your foot pain. I mean shit, did you really think wrapping your feet in back-issues of the Christian Science Monitor was going to help matters? Those assholes are dumber than Calvinists.

Okay, now that I got that shit off my chest (come on OU, I was sleeping!) I can start explaining away all of the mysteries of Week 4.

- I broke Rashard Mendenhall’s shoulder in an effort to get Christmas Ape to stop bitching at his poor cat about the kid fumbling a couple of balls. Seriously Ape, Jean Grey doesn’t want to hear that shit. Just scratch her under the chin and keep her fed. Now go clean out that fucking litter box before I smite one of the Primanti brothers.

- I forced the Raiders of Oakland to fall to the Chargers of “San” Diego because Lane Kiffin needed a way out. That decision to go for the 70 yard field goal was all me, so you can put the blame on me if you must. But don’t act like that shit wasn’t funny. Hell, you should have seen the other shit I was going to pull. If Kiffin hadn’t been of so strong mind you would have seen my other influences, like the second down punt, the triple flea-flicker, and even the triple option run by JaMarcus Russell and his two invisible friends.

- I carried the Bears of Chicago to victory over the Eagles of Philadelphia because Brian Westbrook IS TOTALLY FUCKING WITH MY FANTASY TEAM! It’s also fun watching Chicago fans get all excited about their team before I replace Kyle Orton’s ginger ale with gin make Mike Brown’s achilles look like a piece of John Madden’s frayed dental floss after his third steak dinner.

- I forced the Rams of “St.” Louis to lose their game against the Bills of Buffalo because…wait, no…actually that was all them. My mistake. But If it had been me I totally would have started Trent Green. Unless of course there was a triple amputee at my disposal.

Thanks, God!

Thanks Boomer!