ESPN Wants You to Meet the Beadle

ESPN has announced a new Saturday afternoon programming block on ABC, but that's not the real development in the news.

No, the real story in the April 3 unveiling of ESPN Sports Saturday, a two-hour amalgam of interviews and movies, is the continued meteoric rise of Michelle Beadle up the ranks of the Worldwide Leader.

Beadle, 34, who co-hosts ESPN2's daily SportsNation, will co-anchor Winners Bracket, a clips-and-comments show a la The Soup and Best Week Ever, where the week's events and newsmakers are placed in a bracket with a winner declared at the end.

At an hour, Winners Bracket, co-hosted by former NFL player Marcellus Wiley, is a major element of Sports Saturday, and the notion that Beadle, who only joined ESPN in June, is such a major part of it provides an indication that she is being groomed to become the next Big Thing.

And just who is Michelle Beadle, you ask? Well, unless you live in the New York metro area, you'd probably not heard of her until she came to SportsNation.

Beadle's resume includes a stint as a "behind the chutes" reporter on TNN's coverage of the Professional Bull Riders' tour, as well as hosting shows on Fine Living Network, Animal Planet and the Discovery Channel, as well as a turn as a sideline reporter on San Antonio Spurs games.

However, Beadle's time as sideline reporter on New Jersey Nets games, as well as her time as a co-host of Yankees On Deck on YES Network no doubt opened the eyes of executives at Bristol, Conn.-based ESPN, clearing the way for her to go from virtual obscurity to hosting a show on a broadcast network in nine months.

The camera certainly loves Beadle, who also did radio updates for Michael Kay's 1050 ESPN Radio show on drive time in New York, and her perkiness has already made her a fan favorite in the blogosphere. She is already apparently into the second part of the old joke about the stages of Hollywood stardom, which are who is Michelle Beadle, get me Michelle Beadle, who is Michelle Beadle. Let's see if she gets a long stay in the "get me Michelle Beadle" part before she goes into the second "who is Michelle Beadle?" segment.

Now you see VERSUS .. Again

USA Today reports that the NHL's badly hoped for post-Olympics bounce has not materialized, or at least not in television ratings, as the first games back from the Olympics are down in viewership on both NBC and VERSUS, the league's national carriers.

Monday's announcement that VERSUS and Direct TV have ended a lengthy feud that kept the Comcast-owned channel off the satellite television provider should provide the league at least a few more homes and viewers, though you'd have to figure that a lot of the hardcore hockey types have already abandoned Direct TV for other distributors.

La Russa's Lament

Normally, the rantings of coaches and managers about media treatment should be taken with a grain of salt, but St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa has a decent beef, or gripe, given that he is a vegetarian, with ESPN.

On Monday, ESPN "reported" that the Philadelphia Phillies had had internal discussions about approaching the Cardinals over the possibility of swapping sluggers Ryan Howard and Albert Pujols, on the theory that the Cardinals might balk at having to pay Pujols an extravagant salary when his contract expires after next season.

The ESPN story noted that Phillies general manager Ruben Amaro, Jr. denied the assertion on the record, calling such talk "lies." Cardinals GM John Mozeliak also dismissed the story.

La Russa's characterization of the story as "abusive" is a bit strong, but he has every right to be upset about speculation dressed up as news. And for ESPN morning radio talk show host Mike Greenberg to spin La Russa's anger as failing to quash the story is patently absurd.

What ESPN hopes in this case is that if a trade of this magnitude ever happens, you will remember where you heard it first. And if it never happens, they'll gamble that you forgot where you heard it as they peddle another rumor or piece of speculation dressed up as fact. And that's no way to run a news organization.

Real Intriguing Sports

This month's edition of HBO's Real Sports magazine essentially becomes the Frank Deford show, as the former Sports Illustrated writer turns in two interesting stories.

One of them is on a formerly blind skier adjusting to the return of limited sight through experimental stem cell surgery, as well as a 10-year update on a Haitian man who was attempting to help disadvantaged youths before the January earthquake that devastated the country.

The hour, which debuts Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET, also features a solid profile of Michigan State men's basketball coach Tom Izzo. The most compelling story is a Bryant Gumbel reported piece chronicling the lives and struggles of three transgender sportswriters, including that of Mike Penner, the Los Angeles Times columnist also known as Christine Daniels who went back to her male identity and took his life last year.