A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago

CANCER SUCKS, TRULY:  R.I.P. Stuart Scott, 49, one of the men who made ESPN what it is, and brought a fan's enthusiasm to the anchor chair. Ugh.

added: Dan Fienberg:

If you look at Scott's legacy on "SportsCenter," his was a shift of tone every bit as much as a shift of vernacular. With Berman leading the way, there was never a lack of populist enthusiasm at the "SportsCenter" desk, but the erudite irony that Olbermann and Patrick brought to the table, a style no doubt influenced by David Letterman in late night, was already in the process of shifting to ironic detachment as various subsequent anchors put their spin on making the show theirs. Scott was not detached. He was passionate. He was excited. He ended sentences with vocal exclamation points.  Personally, I'm not sure that "SportsCenter" could have survived an ongoing descent into sport-driven sarcasm. Scott curbed that trend and shifted the way fans talked about sports. 

And this can't be said enough: The way ESPN talks about sports remains the way America talks about sports and Scott is a big part of the reason for that.