If you have seen, heard or read about sports in the last 25 years, you know Len Berman. Every day, Len’s punchy descriptions, devoid of hype and jargon ding into my email inbox. If you don’t get Len Berman’s Top 5, you are missing the purity of what sports used to be and should still be.
His philosophy is simple: “Not everyone is a sports fan. We are so inundated with sports information somebody has to sift through it all to find some interesting talking points. That someone would be me.”
Yes he is. Every day, in 5 simple items, Len separates the sheep from the goats and carves the lean from the fat – and does it with a smile. He says what we are all thinking. Not a day goes by when I don’t laugh reading his observations. Like this:
“A dog in the UK named Bertie was walking a little funny, so his owners took him to the vet. X-rays showed the dog had been shot. During surgery they removed the bullet along with 9 golf balls that Bertie had swallowed while out on walks. If you’re scoring at home, that’s one tough dog, and 3 free sleeves of balls for his owners.”
Len also finds stuff for us to talk about down at the sports bar:
“The Baseball Hall of Fame has been the hot topic this week. While we’ve been debating Pete Rose, a quote from “Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame” by Zev Chafets might be informative. He writes that as of 2007, the Hall included “a convicted drug dealer, a reformed cokehead who narrowly beat a lifetime suspension from baseball, a celebrated sex addict, an elders of Zion conspiracy nut, a pitcher who wrote a book about how he cheated his way into the Hall, a well-known and highly arrested drunk driver and a couple of nasty beanball artists.” And that just included the living members. Now about that Hall of Fame character clause…”
Speaking of sports bars, lately, I’ve been noticing men getting schooled by women on everything from baseball to the NFL and NBA. You think that is a coincidence?
No.
Those women are going to http://www.lenbermansports.com, typing their email addresses into the box, hitting return and loading up on Len’s Top 5 every day before kicking some serious sports ass down at the Buffalo Wild Wings.
Guys, if you don’t get Len’s Top 5, your woman is going to be homering off your insight-less pitches and scoring from your uninformed fumbles. When they start discussing how many positive results came for the 2003 steroid tests in baseball and who got jacked up, do you want to be sitting there wing Asian Zing sauce on your face?
Len’s Top 5 will cure DASS (dumb ass sports syndrome) and it is free, so you have no excuse for not uncorking your head from your end zone.
Look, here’s one about a security guy who stole a $20,000 autographed Michael Jordan jersey from Eva Longoria’s home – and sold it for $120 on Craigslist. Clearly the security guy was suffering from DASS. Len could have helped him get at least $16,000 in this economy. That’s what I’m talking about.
• If you’re interested in more information about how things got to this point, here is a wonderful article about Len Berman from the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/fashion/03genb.html?_r=2&ref=media
