Note to ESPN advertisers: Did you run your ad in this crap about Clemens? Have you canceled your ads with ESPN yet?

From ESPN Ombudman's latest column, gingerly at the end. Especially for all of you who'd love to work at ESPN/MLB and refer to employees there as "respected:"

• (Ombudsman): "Often, viewers notice the same things I do, and express it as well as, if more vehemently than, I would, so I am going to take the opportunity to let a viewer speak for me.
• His message concerns the (ESPN) viewer e-mails that ran as crawls during Roger Clemens' live news conference (e on Jan. 7. One of them read:
• "Roger Clemens is a criminal and a cheat!! Plain and simple!!"

"ESPN's fairness is severely in question after what ESPN2 did towards the end of the Jan. 7 Roger Clemens press conference," wrote Carlos Holmes of Dover, Del.

• "To run negative e-mail comments about Clemens at the bottom of the screen during the live coverage of the press conference leaves pretty much indisputable evidence that ESPN has made up its mind on the issue.

I personally don't presume to know whether Clemens' denials are the truth, but it would seem if a network is going to afford the athlete the opportunity to hold a live press briefing on the matter, then

• the network should at least give him the opportunity to do so without distracting the viewers -- some of whom want to have an open mind and hear what the pitcher has to say -- from what he is saying.""

From ESPN Ombudsman column, 1/14/08, "ESPN (Mostly) Rises to the Occasion with the Mitchell Report."

• (I looked for reference in the article to the fact that George Mitchell is chairman of ESPN's parent company and could find none. Normally you expect to see that in this kind of column). SM

P.S. AS YOUR SO-CALLED 'RESPECTABLE' BOB LEY HAS SAID, "ESPN DEFINES THE DAILY DISCOURSE IN SPORTS."

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