Abstract
Athletics can be a window to broader cultural issues, but so can the way in which athletic events are transmitted to fans. In this article, the author detects a rising arrogance among sports announcers that relate to American culture in general. Announcers no longer privilege the games they broadcast. Instead, they claim a status equal to the participant, and in doing so, they pollute the purity of the games they observe. The epitome of this practice occurs on ESPN, where glibness—the main symptom of the new arrogance—is overwhelming. This is the last straw. The glibness has been creeping into academics for a long time, and now, it seems to have tainted baseball, the last bastion of purity.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.