I haven't watched pro-football since I took a trip abroad in 1995 and came back home to find that both of the L.A. teams had skipped town. Ten years later and L.A. still doesn't have a team. The NFL can rot for all I care.

But I do remember the emergence of Chris Berman very fondly. It was all so exciting, suddenly we got to listen to this nutjob saying crazy shit all the time, instead of to Jim Lampley quoting Shakespeare from underneath his bouffant, or to Keith Olbermann, who I used to see at the local baseball card shop peacocking around like Paris Hilton and shouting cleverisms at municipal-code-violating decibel levels.

Berman was beautiful, then. It's just like the way The Dark Knight Returns ruined comics. Something wonderful and unexpected comes along, then everyone else copies the formula and spreads it everywhere until you wish the original gem had never come along. The irony kills.