Berman: ESPN Would Be Doing Public A Disservice By Asking Him To Shelve "Ground Control To David Toms" And Other Not-Funny Knicknames

Jay Posner bravely talks to Chris Berman about the ESPN legend's uncanny ability to make 6 hours of U.S. Open telecast seems like 60 hours in a Guantanamo detention cell.

We talked about his passion for the Open – which he has been covering since 1986, including the last five years as the play-by-play voice on Thursday and Friday – but also the criticism and why he believes it's unjust.

“First of all,” he said, “it's unfair because if you're on the air for six hours and heaven forbid I say, 'Ground control to David Toms,' you're writing it like I said it 500 times. Not the case.”

One Ground control to David Toms was one time too many.

Perhaps the biggest criticism I hear about Berman is that he puts himself above the event he's broadcasting. When Maxim recently named him No. 1 on its list of the 10 worst broadcasters in sports, author Will Leitch – who founded Deadspin.com – wrote that Berman “never fails to shoehorn his trademark nonsense into a game.”

Said Berman: “It's unfair if people say I'm trying to make it my show. Then you haven't paid attention. Then you haven't done me fair. 'Cause I'm not. But I'm trying to be me and have a good time with it as someone who's an avid follower of the game; someone who's like most of the audience who are watching, a 16-handicap give or take, not a 3 (handicap) or a scratch.

“I would think that's someone loaded for bear before I even come out of the woods, and I can't help that.

Loaded with dread was more how I think of it.

“It's the only way I know how to do it. There's a lot of ways to announce it; I'm just being me. I'm not trying to overdo it at all. If anyone thinks I come in to overdo it, you're not being fair and you're not listening.”

No, I believe you. Just wish we would get more stuff like this.

John Skipper, ESPN executive VP of content and a supporter of Berman's, said Berman “is aware of a balance about being himself and the event. But part of what you want on the event is Chris Berman.”

Because it's just the little old U.S. Open, it needs that extra push!

“The U.S. Open guys love him on it,” Skipper said (a USGA spokesman confirmed that). “They position themselves as the people's golf tournament and Chris is the personification of that. . . . He's knowledgeable and passionate. For us it's a no-brainer (to use him).”

Really, there's nothing I can add to those sentences.