WSJ: Barra: Costas Now: No Chair-Throwing, Please; Just Some Talk About Sports

“The truth,” says Mr. Costas, “is that this issue was a powder keg waiting to explode somewhere, and ours just happened to be the match that set it off. I think Buzz (Bissinger) realizes he did a disservice to the journalistic standards he was claiming to uphold by jumping on Will that way. At the same time, it’s easy for many of those in the blogosphere to dismiss Buzz’s outburst as representative of the objections the mainstream sports media has to the excesses of the Internet.

“Put it this way: Though I would have preferred more light and less heat on the subject, I think we did a service by putting the issue out there to be discussed. And it won’t be the last time that we’ll be discussing it. Next time we’ll be better prepared. For now, I’ll leave it at this—though Buzz is a friend, those who suggest that he was expressing my views on sports blogs are wrong.” His own feelings about the Internet, say Mr. Costas, echoing Alan Ladd’s gunfighter in “Shane” on the subject of his weapon, is that “it’s just a tool. No better or worse than the person using it.”

..."Every year,” says Mr. Costas, “there’s a controversy about someone who was elected to the Hall of Fame or someone who was left out. Numbers alone don’t prove anything; the game changes so much from decade to decade that statistics are like signposts in a sandstorm—exactly what they indicate is hard to determine. We’re going to talk about what makes a player Hall of Fame worthy with two first ballot Hall of Famers who also excel at analysis as well as someone who most fans say deserves the honor.”

“Bob Costas is at a point that Howard Cosell was at about 35 years ago in terms of influence and audience credibility, and he thrives in this setting,” says HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg.

Stop, stop...I just split my wrecktus abdominus from laughing.