BBTN needs to be cancelled

Baseball Tonight was once a show that baseball fans could rely on for detailed highlights, insightful analysis, and legitimate reporting. These days, it's nothing but a gimmick-loaded suckfest hosted primarily by idiots. And tonight, ESPN may have aired the worst installment of BBTN ever. The lineup responsible for this travesty was Steve Berthiaume, Fernando Vina, Steve Phillips, and John "Krukie" Kruk.

The episode had a theme. Playing on the fact that so many staff "aces" made starts today, the entire show was card- and gambling-themed. So to begin the show, they did this ridiculous thing where each of the studio analysts drew a card from what appeared to be a stack of aces with pitchers' names taped on them--the analyst with the best ace being the "winner" of the show apparently. Man, that's some clever shit, guys.

From this point on, the entire show was an obnoxious string of "card" puns that made me want to punch the TV. In addition to the stupid card-themed lists they had the analysts compile--team with the "best hand," team with the "best trump card," team with the biggest "wild card," biggest homeruns in Cardinals history (you know, like "Cards" for short... get it? get it? eh? eh? pretty good, huh?)--I counted no less than a dozen independently-formed card puns delivered by the studio analysts--most of which made no sense, e.g. "Prince Fielder cashes in his chips" on a homerun highlight, "we'll ante up the day's best plays for you," referring to Mark Teixeira as the "Mark-ed card," etc.

That's not to mention the three or four times Phillips said a pitcher was "dealing" and the pair of times he made the same stupid pun about "King" Felix Hernandez being "a king, but is he an ace?"

Out of fairness, it should be noted that Berthiaume and Phillips were by far the guiltiest parties and that Vina had the dignity to refuse participation almost entirely. Surprisingly, so did Kruk, he only making one or two card puns, which he said in more of a mocking tone.

Never has it been more apparent to me that Baseball Tonight--like every other ESPN show that once had substance--has degenerated into embarassing self-parody and needs to go away for good.