By Steve Berman
Now the boneheads at ESPN have jumped the shark, going beyond a statue of Robert E. Lee triggering people to the name “Robert Lee.”
Except this Robert Lee is an Asian announcer who was assigned to the Virginia at William and Mary football game scheduled for Sept. 2. Now he’s been moved to announcing the Youngstown State at Pittsburgh game.
Lee is the most unfortunate person in the history of conscious thought to be scarred and slimed by the box of rocks the suits at ESPN keep under a desk with the name “George Costanza” scrawled in crayon on the side, that they collectively use for brains.
The logic arrived at by the box of rocks is certain that the people in Pennsylvania aren’t triggered by Robert Lee, supposedly because they’re only 185 miles from Gettysburg, or 6,770 miles from Seoul–or something. I truly don’t know because this is the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen a corporation do, including everything United Airlines has ever done.
A statement, purportedly from ESPN, justifying this ridiculous action that insults the intelligence of every mammal on earth, reads:
We collectively made the decision with Robert to switch games as the tragic events in Charlottesville were unfolding, simply because of the coincidence of his name. In that moment it felt right to all parties. It’s a shame that this is even a topic of conversation and we regret that who calls play by play for a football game has become an issue.
The statement has been reported as received in an email by several reporters, including Alex Griswold of Washington Free Beacon. My confidence in it being real is fairly high, given that WFB does some really good reporting.
You can be forgiven if you think it’s got to be fake, because, I mean, really. Just c’mon man.
That being said, in an abundance of caution, I have reached out to ESPN PR for confirmation. If I were them I would not publicly confirm that statement either, since doing so would necessitate a self-lobotomy for the person who wrote it. This is likely the reason the sender’s email address has been blacked out. (I think it reads boxofrocksr@espn.com.)
Just for the record here: People with Asian family names like “Lee” did not fight in the American Civil War, and are not in any way related to General Robert E. Lee.
Also for the record: People who drive or own international orange 1969 Dodge Chargers, or the actors John Schneider, Catherine Bach, Tom Wopat or any of the other cast members of “The Dukes of Hazzard” are not in any way related to General Robert E. Lee.
Finally, our own Peter Heck’s tweet FTW:
ESPN is done. Ended. They are the dinosaurs and the Lee maneuver is the asteroid. This will forever go down in the history of stupidity as the summiting of the Mount Everest of dumb, racist, boneheaded, idiotic and harebrained ideas. Even the box of rocks ESPN uses for brains will gleam red with embarrassment.
It’s time for a new sports network that’s not ESPN, because this one has gone over the sanity falls wearing nothing but soiled underpants. Shark, jumped.
