TVSquad

Long before ESPN was the worldwide leader in sports, ABC sportscaster and newsman Jim McKay was the voice of American sports. ABC sports legend Jim McKay died today at the age of 86; the cause of death was not revealed. In the annals of television history, Jim McKay is among the giants in sports broadcasting: a twelve-time Emmy winner, an iconic presence on The Wide World of Sports, the man who said the words, "the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat." He was the moderator of twelve Olympics and a broadcaster who gave the best he had in every television show in which he was involved, be it the Kentucky Derby, the British Open, or any of the other hundreds of events he covered.

If Jim McKay had just done that, he'd have a great legacy. However, when he was confronted with the task of anchoring the events that unfolded at the 1972 Munich Olympics, when the Israeli athletes were taken hostage by terrorist and killed in a commando raid, Jim McKay rose to the occasion.

The New York Post is reporting that HBO has quietly begun production on a feature-length documentary about Barbaro, the horse that captured the public's imagination after winning the Kentucky Derby in 2006 and suffering a disastrous injury during the running of Preakness two weeks later. Barbaro was euthanized on January 29th of this year.

During the eight months that passed between Preakness and Barbaro's eventual death, he became the center of immense media and public attention. Somewhere along the way, Barbaro, like Seabiscuit before him, became more than a horse. He became a symbol - albeit a contested one. To the thousands who sent him "get well" letters and holy objects to speed his recovery, he was the picture of strength and perservance. To some on-lookers, his story was an intolerable mixture of media overkill and misplaced senimentality. To others, he represented the excesses of breeding animals for sport. Regardless of what you think of Barbaro and his fans, a film was inevitable. Expect to see HBO's Barbaro documentary in June, during Triple Crown season.

That's an odd headline, eh?

A freelance writer at NBC Sports has been fired for lifting dialogue from the fourth season opener of The West Wing ("20 Hours In America") in a story about a horse trainer in the Kentucky Derby that had rescued three children from a fire. The episode had a storyline about a bombing at a college swim meet, and President Bartlet used the words "ran into the fire" in the same way that this writer in the piece used them.

But it doesn't end there. In the same episode, Bartlet said: "The streets of heaven are too crowded with angels, but every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet a challenge, we look up and we're reminded that that capactiy may be limitless." The Derby piece had this:

"... funny thing about life is that every time we think we've measured our capacity to meet its challenges, we're reminded that that capacity may well be limitless."

Wow, I'm not a horse racing fan, but if I had heard that, I would have immediately recognized it, since I've seen that episode 4 million times.

[via TV Tattle]