Tony Clark is a D-Back again and everyone is happy…for now. While Burnsy agrees that bringing back Clark was a no-brainer and should help, it is not the cure-all for the D-Backs offensive woes. The move may signal some other things, though:

1. Conor Jackson may be playing everyday in left, with the rejuvenated Chad Tracy getting the majority of reps at 1B, and Clark spelling him occasionally.

2. The team will not make any drastic moves, such as dealing Emilo Bonifacio, Max Scherzer, or Jarrod Parker. This is nothing new. Last year the team’s biggest “deadline” moves consisted of firing their hitting coach and calling up their top prospect.

The Arizona Cardinals top two prospects are still unsigned and GM Rod Graves joined Burnsy to talk about the status of the contract talks involving Calais Campbell and Dominique Rogers-Cromartie. Graves also talked about the lack of long-term contracts with Karlos Dansby, Anquan Boldin, and Darnell Dockett. According to Graves, Dockett’s situation seems to be “non-negotiable” (my words), while he is open to signing “franchise player” Boldin to a long-term deal as well as the man whom the Cardinals used the franchise tag on, Dansby. (That is, provided Dansby proves his worth for a 2nd straight season.) Graves added that he felt Dansby was “comfortable” playing this season with the one-year $8 million tender. We’ll see.

We’ll also see who comes out on top of the final two ESPN worst concept brackets:

Skip Bayless Region:

1. Titletown - “SportsCenter” will travel to 20 communities this summer before letting SportsNation make the call on the city deserving the name TitleTown USA:
July 4 Green Bay, Wis.
July 5 Lawrence, Kan.
July 6 Pittsburgh
July 7 Knoxville, Tenn.
July 8 Chapel Hill, N.C.
July 9 Los Angeles
July 10 Palo Alto, Calif.
July 11 Louisville, Ky.
July 12 Chicago
July 13 Boston
July 14 Gainesville, Fla.
July 15 New York
July 16 Valdosta, Ga.
July 17 Detroit
July 18 San Francisco
July 19 Williamsport, Pa.
July 20 Ann Arbor, Mich.
July 21 Columbus, Ohio
July 22 Parkersburg, W.V.
July 23 Massillon, Ohio

Scouting Report: Where to begin. How about with city #13- Valdosta, Georgia. I’ve never heard of it. Apparently Doc Holliday’s from there. That’s great. He also lived in Tombstone, and no one seems to really care about that place anymore. And I live in Arizona.

VS.

The winner of the play-in game between:

4. ESPN 2 Launch- with Leather Jacketed Keith Olbermann- The first program on ESPN2 was SportsNight, a sports news hybrid featuring Keith Olbermann and Suzy Kolber. The debut was noted by Olbermann’s statement at the beginning of transmission: “Good evening, and welcome to the end of my career.”
Scouting Report: I’m torn on this one. On the one hand, ESPN 2 has been a very successful network and is a very useful channel as far as airing baseball and especially college football. On the other, is the aforementioned image of Olbermann in a leather jacket. You make the call.

AND:

4. Cold Pizza was a television morning sports talk show that was shown on weekday mornings on ESPN2. The show’s format included daily sports news, interviews with sports journalists, athletes, and personalities, and an assortment of other sports and non-sports topics. This show began airing on October 20, 2003.

Scouting Report: Again, like ESPN 2, there are some nice things about this show. The title, however, is not one of those things. Thankfully, that has changed. Just not soon enough for my taste…

2. Playmakers was a TV series on ESPN that depicted the lives of the players on a fictional professional football team. The show starred Omar Gooding, Marcello Thedford, Christopher Wiehl, Jason Matthew Smith, Russell Hornsby and Tony Denison. The show, which ran eleven episodes from August 26, 2003 to November 11, 2003, was the first original drama series created by ESPN. Though it had a critically acclaimed cast, it was criticized for predictable and often sensationalist storylines, while simultaneously praised by publications such as TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. The show dealt with topics including drug abuse, steroids, domestic abuse, and homosexuality. The NFL was unhappy with the way the show portrayed professional football players (despite several players, most notably Deion Sanders, speaking out about the accuracy of the lifestyles portrayed), which prompted ESPN to cancel the show.

Scouting Report: This might have worked on FX. I’m not sure because I didn’t watch the show. Apparently the NFL did, and didn’t appreciate the stereotypes and unflattering portrayal of their athletes. Picture the Oliver Stone movie “Any Given Sunday,” except 11 times.

VS.

3. Steve Phillips Fake GM Press Conferences on Sportscenter:
Per Deadspin in 2005: “For anyone who wondered just what sacrifices that legitimate journalists like Jeremy Schaap and Buster Olney have to suckle from ESPN’s cash teat, look no further than this morning’s “SportsCenter.” In it, baseball analyst Steve Phillips answers mock questions in a mock press conference, pretending to be Boston’s general manager. This is bad enough, dumb, pointless, harmless. But then, the people “asking” the “questions” to Phillips … they’re real ESPN journalists! Including Olney and Schaap, who both, after asking scripted questions to a co-worker, have considerable “I hate myself and want to die” looks on their faces.”

Scouting Report: This pretty much speaks for itself. I mean, seriously, what genius thought it would be compelling television to put this on. Fortunately for us, it didn’t last too long. Unfortunately for Mets fans, the real tenure of Steve Phillips as GM lasted much longer.

Stephen A. Smith Region:

1. Tilt is a U.S. TV series set against the backdrop of the (fictional) World Championship of Poker tournament in Las Vegas, and with the tagline “You’re playing poker. They’re playing you.” The series first aired on January 13 2005, and is the second original drama series from ESPN, following Playmakers. It was created by Brian Koppelman and David Levien, who co-wrote the poker-themed feature film Rounders. The series starred Michael Madsen.

Scouting report: At least ESPN learned their lesson. Their first original series, Playmakers, pissed off a major partner, the NFL. I’m pretty sure there’s no card lobby that would object the portrayal of their game. Then again maybe they just didn’t watch this show. They wouldn’t be alone…

VS.

4. Stump the Schwab is an American game show that airs on ESPN Classic (originally ESPN 2). The show premiered in 2004, and features three contestants (all male; females never competed for reasons unexplained) trying to stump Howie Schwab, who is the first statistician ESPN has ever had. Stuart Scott is the show’s host. The show also appears on Canada’s The Score Television Network.

Scouting Report: First off, why would you want to??? Have you ever seen “Schwab?” He looks like a forty-something loser that lives in his parents basement and has probably never used a piece of exercise equipment in his life. So this fat New Yorker knows more about than sports than me. Good. He can have that. At least I’m not a loser..

2. Pete Rose Mock Trial. ESPN write-up on the event:
“CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — It didn’t have the glib punch of his O.J. Simpson speeches — there was no “The man can hit, you must acquit” — but defense attorney Johnnie Cochran’s message of “Enough is enough” resonated with a 12-person jury at Harvard Law School on Thursday night
“You have the power,” Cochran had told the jury in his closing remarks. “Now it’s time to bring Pete Rose home — home to the Hall of Fame.”
And so they did.
If those jurors in ESPN’s “Pete Rose On Trial” ran Major League Baseball, the sport’s all-time leader in hits would be eligible for enshrinement in Baseball’s Hall of Fame. In an 8-4 vote, the jurors rejected prosecutor Alan Dershowitz’s contention that Rose’s gambling should keep him barred from Cooperstown.”
Scouting Report: Wouldn’t Alan Dershowitz’s services be better used by arguing against putting this stupid show on the air in the first place? Don’t get me wrong, it’s a nice concept…for a student project. That may have been the original intent. Too bad they didn’t go with that.

VS:

3. Quite Frankly with Stephen A. Smith was a nightly one-hour television show on ESPN2 hosted by Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and ESPN reporter, Stephen A. Smith. The show premiered on August 1, 2005 and was cancelled on January 11, 2007 because of low ratings. Smith called the cancellation a “failure” on his part. “Remember, it was ‘Quite Frankly With Stephen A. Smith.’ The buck stopped with me,” Smith states. “This was not ESPN’s fault - it was mine.” The final episode aired on January 12, 2007.

Scouting Report: Tough draw for “Quite Frankly” here. An impending loss to the Pete Rose mock trial is not a fair indication of truly bad “Quite Frankly” really was. In actuality it was a very, very, bad concept- just not, quite frankly, bad enough.