Christmas Trivia With Answers

Why UNLV's TV contract is a raw deal

Even as I write this, the TV in our newsroom is tuned to ESPN a half-hour before our boys from UNLV get ready to take on the 11th-ranked University of Wisconsin Badgers.

The hype is in full effect, as only ESPN knows how to do it: “THE WAIT IS OVER” the type exclaims, and though the sound is down, I just know the music is a perfect amphetaminic complement.

For men of a certain age, ESPN has occupied a weird place in our lives. It’s grown up with us like a monstrously successful sibling.

I remember when I was 7 or 8: This is when I memorized sports stats obsessively and knew every bizarre bit of trivia — who tied Reggie Jackson for home run leader in 1982? Who was the 1983 Philadelphia 76ers shooting guard? (Answers at the bottom.) The world outside of playing sports, watching sports or anything related to “Star Wars” was pretty much drudgery. So, the idea of an all-sports network was like a calendar in which every day was Halloween or Christmas.

Of course back then ESPN was also something of a joke. The hours were often filled with replays of college baseball and some less-than mainstream sports. David Letterman did a top 10 list of the best ESPN sports, to include, “Amish Rake Fighting.”

But soon the nation’s insatiable need for sports and chicken wings came alive, right at the time that Keith Olbermann and Dan Patrick took “SportsCenter” to a new level, turning what had been a preposterously ponderous “news” program into the great gas that it deserved to be. And the rest is history: ESPN, for better or worse, is now the most dominant force in all of sports.

Back to tonight’s game: UNLV lost badly (as I write, it hasn’t happened yet, but I’ll take the liberty of predicting.) But at least it was on ESPN. (This reminds me of what was said of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza: “He’s a sonofabitch, but he’s our sonofabitch.)

This has Las Vegas sports fans bringing up an old grudge: Why can’t our home games be on ESPN?

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