ESPN showing some backbone under new leadership

SAN JOSE, Calif. – It would be just like ESPN to do something asinine today, to schedule wall-to-wall showings of “Berman on Berman” or export the “Cold Pizza” scream team to show soccer fans what cranky, unhinged sports hooliganism really sounds like.

It would be just like ESPN to do something ridiculous and ethically bankrupt that will make me regret I tried to praise the all-powerful network, this one time.

What the heck, I’m going to do it anyway: Unless I’m getting really soft in my old age, ESPN, particularly “SportsCenter,” has become much less shameful of late.

I can see the billboards now: “Slightly less debasing, except when Chris Berman is on!”

Since last year’s departure of former ESPN huckster maestro Mark Shapiro, and the arrival of new programming czar John Skipper, dare I suggest that ESPN has displayed glimmers of a … gulp … conscience?

My examples: Doug Gottlieb’s bracing college basketball commentary, Buster Olney’s crucial truth-telling on baseball, the solid nightly “NFL Live” discussions, and the increasingly pointed and spotlighted group of general reporters, including Pedro Gomez, Alex Flanagan, Tom Rinaldi, Shelley Smith and Sal Paolontonio.

Of course, I type this acknowledging that 90 percent of the gassy programming that prodded me to launch a monthlong personal ESPN boycott two years ago is still on the air.

I type this knowing that no network should ever be forgiven for that perennially useless NBA studio show, for mindlessly ordering up the “Bonds on Bonds” episodes and for regularly foisting Berman, Sean Salisbury, Screamin’ A. Smith, “1st and 10” and “Around the Horn” upon us.

“Bonds on Bonds” was the rare TV triple crown: It failed commercially, artistically and morally, all at once, but at least Skipper got around to canceling it. Shapiro would have tried to make a movie out of it – or hey, a theme park ride, now that he’s a maven at Six Flags.

Still, “Bonds on Bonds” was nothing worse than what CBS provides us every year when it bows down to Augusta National Golf Club or every time there’s another gushy, publicist-controlled sports profile on “60 Minutes.”

Plus, the ratings are so low for Smith’s show that penalizing ESPN for it would be like ripping a local station for running a 3 a.m. test pattern. Who cares?

Anyway, I type this fully expecting future ESPN embarrassments, however much credit I give to Skipper and “SportsCenter” and game-production guru Norby Williamson.

And I eagerly await Fox Sports Net’s latest attempt at a nightly sports show – “The FSN Final Score,” which debuts July 3 and is being shepherded by my friend and former boss, Rick Jaffe, who continually proves to me that newspaper souls can translate to success in TV.

But ESPN is still the standard here, with room for improvement. ESPN doesn’t have – and, I’m guessing, doesn’t want – a Johnny Miller or Charles Barkley on board.

The network has too much athlete kiss-up in its chromosomes to stop now, and Peter Gammons, John Kruk and, to an extent, Joe Morgan should probably register as official Bonds lobbyists from their performances so far this year.

ESPN’s signature voice is the blathering, sychophantic Berman, while NBC has Bob Costas and Al Michaels and Fox has Joe Buck.

But, if you ask me, under Skipper and Williamson, ESPN has strengthened its strong points and de-emphasized some of its weak spots.

ESPN’s strength is its breadth and depth: It does soccer (thank God no more buffoonish Jack Edwards on the USA World Cup play-by-play), it does the College World Series, it has Barry Melrose’s analysis on hockey (100 times better than anything on OLN).

It can send 572 or however many reporters and anchors it sent to Kentucky for Roger Clemens’ minor-league start last week. Heck, it even has classy Dana Jacobson anchoring alongside the other horrors on “Cold Pizza.”

I find a way to listen to Dan Patrick’s show on ESPN radio, especially during the tart hour he shares with old “SportsCenter” partner Keith Olbermann.

A big ESPN test will come this fall, when Williamson rolls out his “Monday Night Football” broadcast. We’ll see how well Tony Kornheiser’s charming “Pardon the Interruption” schtick translates alongside motor mouth Joe Theismann and smart play-by-play man Mike Tirico.

We’ll see if ESPN, in its shiniest moment (“Monday Night Football!”), reverts to emptiness or if it decides it wants to be a real broadcast network with integrity, principles and pride and all that other strange stuff.