Keith Olbermann showed up early for today’s Big Show and offered to sit quietly. He didn’t.

They immediately commenced discussing their appearance tonight on The Late Show with David Letterman. Like past shows, Dan is convinced that something will happen to Letterman’s other guest, either bumping or reducing his appearance time. KO suggests if nothing happens to the other guests, it could be them it will happen to. Keith offers these possibilities:

1. One of them says something career ending (though Dan offers that if it hasn’t happened by now, it probably won’t).

2. Keith gets stuck in an elevator. Dan thinks that would be a good thing as it means more time for him.

3. Chris Berman is a special “surprise guest”. This leads Dan to call Berman “Fred Flintstone” and Keith to warn Dan that stuff like that is what he used to say at ESPN just before the end.

4. Musical artist Ryan Adams‘ guitar catches fire. Oh, and he may sound like Neil Young if you are Stephen King.

Dan is still concerned about tonight’s show. He wants to either race Keith to the seat or switch seats at a certain time. Keith thinks he will forget and they bet a dinner (place your bets now). Keith assures Dan that he can sit next to Dave since Keith has been on these things many times and it is no big deal. Dan realizes he is being mocked, and Keith gives himself snaps (really, he actually says “Oh, snap.”) This leads to worry #5:

5. Dan gets up to switch seats and Keith doesn’t, winding Dan up in Keith’s lap. Keith adds that will end their secret of 25 years. Dennis Rodman doesn’t think it is much of a secret.

After exhausting Dan’s fears, and a retelling of how the show came to be called “The Big Show”, we move on to DP and KO’s favorite SportsCenter ads. Keith likes the Lounge Singer (I think this is the one he means) and also the Operating Room (sorry, I couln’t find this link!). Dan likes Lance Armstrong as Generator. Sadly, neither man ever got paid for them. BTW, this is my favorite.

Dan once caught rainwater in a coffee cup while on air with SportsCenter, while Keith had to do the show in the dark (I assume there was studio lighting but nothing else) due to a lightening storm. I am getting the feeling that ESPN is cheap.

Should we care about wrestlers or football players taking steroids, like we do with baseball players? This discussion seems in response to the horrible murders-suicide of wrestler Chris Benoit. KO says that wrestlers may be influencing kids even if the performance enhancers don’t affect the match outcome. As for football players, Keith laments that we will only care once a big name player dies. Same with head injuries in the NFL.

A big, contorted discussion of East-West Championship games versus Conference Championship games versus Best Two-Teams Championship games. Nothing was solved.

Do we want a nine game World Series, or even a 15 game one? Even baseball fans Keith and Dan say “no”. Keith then walks us back the last seven years of World Series games to prove his point.

If you are hitting below the Mendoza line, don’t expect to make the Sunday paper.

How will Bobby Cox celebrate being the MLB manager with the most career ejections? By throwing the cake at the umpires of course. Well, that’s Keith’s idea anyway.

A listener writes in to ask Dan if he is going for the record of saying “Yaaaaayyyyyy” in one day’s show. Which of course leads the boys to repeatedly say “Yaaaaayyyyyy”.

Tune in tonight for Countdown. Or as Dan says, “Your leading source of Paris Hilton news!”

Dan also advises you to then take a nap, and wake up to watch them at 11:30 EDT on Letterman.