Is the media’s influence too great in the world of sports?

Anyone who saw Robert Horry’s hip-check on Steve Nash in the closing minutes of Monday night’s Spurs-Suns game knew that the incident would soon be plastered all over ESPN.com and the sports sections of countless newspapers.

Except me.

I was kind of hoping the media would take it easy with this incident, one that looked far uglier on TV than it actually was.

It turned very quickly into a futile hope. Within hours, the entire sports media universe was converging on Horry’s hard foul like a black hole. Suspensions of Horry and the Suns’ Amare Stoudemire and Boris Diaw soon followed.

Then there was Wednesday’s close 88-85 Spurs’ win in Phoenix, with the pundits wondering if this was the final straw for frustrated fans that would send playoff ratings plummeting. Yet it’s unlikely that these same pundits questioned the role their rabid coverage played in perception of the incident.

There exists an interesting dichotomy in sports reporting today. We call athletes warriors and describe their feats as intense battles where the limits of will and physical might are tested.

Yet, the rules in most sports are ever-shifting in an effort to protect players and favor the offense, because after all, these athletes are valuable commodities, and to most fans a 75-71 defensive grindout isn’t their idea of $50 well spent.

When the ultimate NBA playoff veteran on a deep, championship team like the Spurs commits a hard foul against a two-time MVP in the final seconds of a hotly contested game, things are bound to get a little chippy.

No one threw a punch. Yet most columnists and talking heads were all over Horry before NBA disciplinarian Stu Jackson and commissioner David Stern sent down the suspensions, and soon they too were coming under fire.

I realize this was a huge incident that certainly played a role in the outcome of Wednesday night’s game, but I’m tired of the 24-hour news cycle that shapes the story into something so far away from the action on the court that keeping track of everyone’s opinions becomes a full-time job.

I don’t think I’m alone on this one, either. In the end, we watch sports to be entertained. We read newspapers and troll ESPN.com to be informed, but when those would-be informers attempt to become the entertainment and leave the on-court action as an afterthought, there’s a problem.

I love watching Tony Kornheiser battle Mike Wilbon on ESPN’s hit show Pardon The Interruption. I think TNT’s Charles Barkley is hilarious (mostly) and I’ve recently discovered the awesomeness of participating in a sports talk radio show.

But, it’s time to remember that we are sports fans, not fans of some ex-player dishing out his two cents on cable television. There are games being played here, important playoff games at that. Isn’t that enough? Shouldn’t it be?

Maybe the answer is that today, it isn’t. Perhaps it’s not enough to just watch competitive games and root for your favorite team. If knowledge is power, sports fans are more empowered than ever before. The hope is that knowing doesn’t get in the way of a far more important goal: enjoying.

So do yourself a favor. Don’t watch ESPN today. Don’t read a single opinion piece about how the Suns got screwed or how dirty the Spurs are. Just tune in to the game and try to enjoy it for what it is: a key game between the two best teams left in the playoffs. If you love sports, that should be enough.