Am I Watching SportsNight on CSC?

The Big Show featured one of my favorite sports anchors of all time, albeit a semi-ficticious one.

Keith Olbermann, of the creatively named Olbermann, featured Josh Charles who inhabited his Dan Rydell persona from SportsNight, following a big moment of his on his show The Good Wife

Olbermann introduced Charles at the top of a new segment at which point he sat at the desk as his co-anchor, reading pieces as only Dan Rydell could. 

Charles is from Baltimore and even prodded voters to support former mayor and current governor Martin O'Malley.  It also makes him an Orioles fan.  And while there were no Orlando Rojas highlights*, Charles did do a Orioles bit.

* The episode featured Dan trying to avoid learning the result of a spring training game featuring a pitcher making a comeback, problematic considering his job as a sports anchor who is supposed to report the news.

KO  also references The Cut Man*, who showed that you actually can give yourself a nickname, and Charles and Keith pay homage to fill in co-anchor Bobbie Bernstein, Dan Rydell's co-anchor Casey McCall played by Peter Krause, and show creator Aaron Sorkin.

* Hilarity ensues.

Sorkin came up with the idea for SportsNight while he was living in a hotel writing what would become The American President, and a significant amount of The West Wing*. He watched Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann doing SportsCenter, back when it was The Big Show, every night and thought about doing a show behind those scenes.  Back before ESPN gave all their writing resources to Bill Simmons ** they had Page 2, which did a short piece on the show.

* And doing all the drugs.

** Who invented blogging.  Did you know that?

Olbermann is a spectacular sports show if you are the sort of sports fan that is able to make the connection between football and brain damage.  Or that the professional football team in the nation's capital needs to change their name.  The highlights will go for several minutes in some cases.  They feature hockey more than the rest of ESPN on aggregate. 

SportsNight is a show to enjoy if you ever liked The West Wing, or anything Sorkin's written.  It premiered in 1998 and ran for two seasons.  Much of the main cast went on to other shows like Six Feet Under, The Good Wife, The West Wing and Desperate Housewives.