ESPN is starting to suck less, now that I found out about this awesome easter egg on their website.

Step 1: Visit www.espn.com
Step 2: On your keyboard, hit the following key sequence: up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A, Enter.
Step 3: Enjoy. Try clicking on some of your new friends.

They took it off moments after I posted.

I just read an article on ESPN about Jonathon Papelbon’s recent re-signing with the Red Sox.

The Boston Red Sox signed closer Jonathan Papelbon to a one-year contract worth $6.25 million Tuesday, the largest deal in history for a closer who was eligible for arbitration for the first time.

The problem is, they had to make an article out of this and found the flimsiest fact to try and make the article interesting.

All sports reporting is subject to this because there is rarely anything that is cold and hard about the world of sports. Sure, you have statistics, but what do those really show? They are the most empirical facts about the sporting world, but, because they are based in the past, can only help predict what may happen in the present moment.

The problem becomes when statistics and facts become records so easily. It’s equivalent to getting an award for “Most Aggressive” on your 8 year-old house-league hockey team. In this age of digital, it’s only gotten worse with millions of archives able to pull up any statistic possible, stringing a few facts together to present a new, never thought of record based upon qualifiers such as “for a closer” or “eligible for arbitration for his first time.” These kinds of statistics are useless, ultimately just proving sports analysts to have the ability to string together a few facts to make something more interesting.

Sports broadcasts are no different. If you know a sport, drown out the meaningless statistics with a mute button because you probably already know the implications for important records before they show it. Tell me what you think sports fans…