Scheft’s “Best in Show” is Overrated

Sports Illustrated columnist Bill Scheft recently released a collection of his columns in book form, entitled "The Best of the Show." In case you have never heard of Bill, he used to be a monologue writer for David Letterman and now writes a humor column for SI — in short, he writes jokes for a living. How he is still alive is something I'm still struggling with.

I really don't understand why people think he's so great — I've never read anything that I would consider remotely funny in his column. Am I missing something here? Is there another column he writes for SI that I'm not reading? Needless to say, not everyone always agrees with me and some people (who I immediately lost all respect for) have actually praised his book.

"The only difference between Bill Scheft and a joke machine is that a machine occasionally requires some maintenance. And the machine's not a self-hating Jew."

— Larry David, creator of "Seinfeld" and "Curb Your Enthusiasm"

I'm not huge on "Curb your Enthusiasm," but I did enjoy "Seinfeld," so I'm going to assume that Larry David was paid handsomely for his remark. I can also retain some respect for him because nowhere in his statement does he say that Bill Scheft is funny or that his book is halfway decent. As a matter of fact, I don't consider this an endorsement of the book at all, but merely an observation of the sad state of joke machines.

"Bill Scheft's column, 'THE SHOW,' should be required weekly reading for every sports fan. Consistently funny enough to make a grown anchorman cry. You can't stop the laughter — you can only hope to contain it."

— Dan Patrick, ESPN SportsCenter anchor and host of "The Dan Patrick Show"

Does Dan Patrick even know who Bill Scheft is? I do love the fact that he threw in a useless "SportsCenter"-esque cliché, I'm sure that's genuine. Couldn't he have thrown in a "this book is simply en fuego" or "this book is cooler than the other side of the pillow"? But while Patrick's comments were bad, they were nothing compared to Tim McCarver's.

"Bright and biting, reading Bill Scheft's 'THE SHOW' makes the experience of sports more fun than anything I know."

— Tim McCarver, bestselling author of "The Perfect Season" and host of "The Tim McCarver Show"

Makes the experience of sports more fun than anything he knows? If that's true, how much would it suck to be Tim McCarver? Is 'THE SHOW' really more fun than anything else he knows of? He's never heard of watching paint dry, taking standardized tests, watching NASCAR, or traffic jams? Not that I had any respect for Tim McCarver to begin with, but I lost any that I could have gained in the future because of his blatant dishonesty (either that, or his overwhelming ignorance).

Now, I didn't really read the book, but I don't consider that to be a prerequisite to give it a fair review. You know that awkward feeling you get when someone you know tries too hard to be funny? Imagine feeling that for however long it takes you to read this book, and that's about all you will get out of it.

If you have your heart set on dropping your hard-earned money on awful jokes, drop me an e-mail and I will make up a few and charge you half of what this book costs. I will even make them all about Bill Scheft ("Can you imagine what it must be like to be this guy's friend? You would have to develop a laugh faker than Lindsay Lohan's chest") if that's what you want.

Since it's a compilation of old columns, I searched my house for every copy of Sports Illustrated I had, just so I could review his column to make sure I wasn't judging him unfairly. From those issues, I have pulled his five best jokes. You decide for yourself.

"John Rocker reportedly claimed that in the last six years he has suffered more abuse than Hank Aaron or Jackie Robinson. Please. What, was he turned away from a lunch counter because they refused to serve idiots?

— Bill Scheft, Sports Illustrated

"When he pitches for the Long Island Ducks Rocker wears plugs in his ears so he can not hear the crowd. That's sad this whole story could have been prevented if only we had been wearing those things."

— BS in SI

"In a recent interview, Shaq ripped Lakers management and referred to Kobe Bryant as "Whatchamacallit." Wow. That may be even more disrespectful than "the defendant."

— BS in SI

"LeBron James fired his agent, Aaron Goodwin. I guess LeBron had his heart set on guest hosting Chappelle's show."

— BS in SI

"The Vikings' Onterrio Smith was detained at a Minneapolis airport when security found paraphernalia desiged to beat drug testing. He told police the kit was for his cousin and they released him. Right now, there's a thousand shoe bombers thinking 'why didn't I think of that?'"

— BS in SI

I felt bad for him just typing those. That being said, I would still recommend buying the book, because if it makes Dan Patrick cry, it's good enough for me.

Mark Chalifoux is also a weekly columnist for SportsFan Magazine. His columns appear every Tuesday on Sports Central. You can e-mail Mark at [email protected].