Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports
Last night, ESPN broadcast its annual cavalcade of celebrities giving daps in the form of postmodernist bowling pins to other celebrities, the ESPY Awards. There are other pointless, self-congratulatory award shows in other industries, but as everyone already knows, handing out hardware for things like "best athlete" or "best team" is a rather egregious waste of time when every league already has MVPs and championship games to decide such things.Born out of the doldrums of summer and Major League Baseball's All-Star break, the ESPYs are ESPN's attempt to class the joint up a little bit and tell the stories of famous sports figures whose stories are already ubiquitous thanks to ESPN. Last night, Michael Sam was given the Arthur Ashe Courage Award and gave a heartfelt speech while the network basked in his reflected dignity. Peyton Manning won "Best Record-Breaking Performance" because if there's one thing we need to be reminded of, it's how good Peyton Manning is at throwing a football. Stuart Scott gave a fine speech after he was given the Jimmy V Perseverance Award. Drake did some sketches with Blake Griffin—which was just as interminable as you can imagine, and Bill Simmons was in it because Bill Simmons is everywhere. Everyone got to dress up fancy, which was probably fun.There is literally nothing else happening in the world of American sports right now, so I might as well tell you what else happened: The Seattle Seahawks won the ESPY for Best Team (how they were determined to be better than the San Antonio Spurs, I couldn't tell you). Chris Davis's runback against Alabama in the Iron Bowl took home Best Play (though what separates that award from Best Moment, handed out to John Anthony Brooks's header to give the US team the lead against Ghana in the World Cup, remains obscure).The games start again today, so ESPN will have something else to put on our televisions, thank God. If you need something to watch, hey, remember the time Norm MacDonald hosted the ESPYs and made them, briefly, worth watching?
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