Tony Reali, the youngish, cantankerous host of ESPN's
Around the Horn, has used his "otherworldly powers of
mute" and silenced all ESPN employees, TV insiders
said yesterday.
Reali plans to used his co-workers' prolonged silence
to make ESPN into an "all-Reali, all the time"
station.
"I plan to take over ESPN, and there's nothing anyone
can do about it," Reali told reporters. "Maybe by
maņana I'll let everybody speak...but not now," said
Reali, throwing a crumpled piece of paper at the
reporters.
"It stinks with a capital S, baby," wrote basketball commentator Dick Vitale on a piece of paper. "This diaper dandy Reali has really pushed the envelope here!"
ESPN management also wrote they "regretted" handing
Reali "blanket mute capabilities."
A singular curiosity from Reali's mute has been the
discovery that SportsCenter hosts Scott Van Pelt and
Stuart Scott "can't spell worth a lick." Forced to
communicate via pen and paper, the popular duo
misspell "about 75% of the stuff they write."
Although sports fans across the country miss Dan
Patrick's dry wit, Mike Lupica's hysterical laugh, and
Tony Kornheiser and Mike Wilbon's obvious attraction
for each other, there's a small faction that
applauds Reali's bold move.
"Look...Woody Paige and Dick Vitale can't say ANYTHING
at the moment," said an anonymous sports fan. "Reali
should win some kind of national award or something."
