Get Well Soon, Baybee

The snarkosphere is in full throat this morning over yesterday’s announcement that Dick Vitale will be sidelined until at least February with a vocal cord ailment. Notwithstanding the irony of his malady, G:TB’s a little bit saddened by the turn of events.

We’re not particularly enamored of Dickie V and his shtick; frankly, we’re Bill Raftery guys. Vitale long ago jumped the shark, morphing from passionate hoops aficionado to shameless coach-stroking caricature. While we love college basketball, we admit that watching Vitale’s telecasts is a bit of a struggle.

Like nearly everything in our popular culture that reaches (and exceeds) the saturation point, backlash is inevitable. See Spears, Britney among many, many others. It’s easy for those of us in the blogosphere to merrily blast away at the icons of our age, and we suppose it makes us all feel just a little bit superior in some small way. But when we see With Leather (one of our favorites, generally speaking) post a headline that reads “I Hope It’s Cancer” in reference to Vitale’s illness, well, y’know, there are some bridges too far.

I don’t particularly like Dick Vitale’s game-calling anymore. I don’t enjoy the larger-than-the-game personality cult nonsense. But I’ll tell you this: I envy the man’s passion. Would that we could all enjoy our jobs as much as he clearly does his. Maybe that enjoyment would temper the knee-jerk need to tear down those that seem to be beating us on the “hey, life is great” scale.

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Addendum: MGL's got a neat and personal Dickie V. story over at CAA:LAMM that underscores the passion side of the ledger.