Berman’s bombast ranks worst

It is just one man's opinion, and no announcer is perfect, but Will Leitch, in an article for Maxim.com, wrote his list of the 10 worst broadcasters in sports.

In 10th place was John Madden ("became a parody of himself long ago") and sixth was Bill Walton ("the undisputed king of hyperbole").

Moving up the chart -- or down, depending on your point of view -- Joe Morgan was third ("the most condescending broadcaster in sports") and runner-up was Chip Caray ("a fountain of inaccuracies").

Leitch's worst: Chris Berman, singled out for being "the godfather of taking a spectacular athletic moment and butchering it."

• NOT SO SPECIAL -- ESPN ombudsman Le Anne Schreiber hammered the network's "SportsCenter Specials" that try to expand on breaking news.

With few exceptions, the program has become an "unwieldy, artificially bloated, overused mechanism for handling major and not-so-major breaking news," she wrote on ESPN.com.

The problem is too much speculation and not enough solid reporting, with the result being a show that tries "to fill a vacuum of airtime by pumping it with hot air on a hot topic."

She pointed to a May 13 episode that focused on developments in the New England Patriots "Spygate" case, one that became "a runaway train of inflammatory speculation."

But the show could be in for a change. Schreiber wrote that ESPN plans to air live daily "SportsCenter" programs in the morning and early afternoon starting in August, which theoretically could lead to "a better fit between the size of the news and the size of the 'SportsCenter' special."

• CHILL OUT, PLEASE -- After NASCAR president Mike Helton held a private meeting with Sprint Cup Series drivers Friday, some indicated that the sanctioning body told them to stop griping so much about the sport's new Car of Tomorrow.

But two-time champion Tony Stewart told reporters he wasn't divulging details.

"There's business meetings that everybody that works in any type of business has that are behind closed doors, and there's a reason for that," he said. "Not everything that's discussed behind closed doors needs to be generated through the media."

• HE'LL SIT WHERE HE WANTS -- Where's the best seat in the Rose Bowl? Jim "Mouth" Purol is about to find out.

The Anaheim, Calif., stuntman plans to sit in each of the 92,542 seats at the Pasadena, Calif., stadium without stopping, starting at 10 a.m. on July 7 and ending, he hopes, five days later.

Purol, 56, has been doing such stunts for two decades.

He has stuffed 290 straws into his mouth at once, simultaneously smoked 159 cigarettes and did a similar "sit-a-thon" at the University of Michigan's stadium.

But the Rose Bowl presents a different challenge.

Thousands of the seats are "flop-downs," meaning "you have to flop down each seat," Puro said. "That's going to be more of a problem."

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