When John Madden started yelling in the booth it was original. Now it's just plain annoying. AP

CARMELO ANTHONY SHOULD HAVE BEEN MVP! HE LED HIS TEAM TO THE PLAYOFFS AND LEBRON DIDN'T! PUT A-ROD AT SHORT AND JETER AT SECOND! THERE ARE TOO MANY TEENAGERS SKIPPING COLLEGE AND TURNING PRO!

What? Oh, sorry, was I shouting? I've obviously been watching too much sports on television lately. Sportscasters apparently have decided that no statement is so trivial that it can't be yelled at the top of their lungs, because it seems that every word coming out of my television set is being screamed. It's getting to the point where anytime you turn on the TV to see what's going on in sports, you get yelled at more than the kid who made those crude noises in junior high homeroom. There was a time when a shouting sportscaster meant something exciting had just happened. Now they yell when they're just sitting at a table discussing the NBA salary cap.

Did you hear Michael Irvin analyzing draft choices on ESPN last week? How could you not? Judging from the volume of his voice, Irvin apparently thought he was still playing for the Dallas Cowboys, trying to make himself heard over 80,000 fans. "THIS KID IS A GOOD FOOTBALL PLAYER! HE'S GOING TO MAKE PLAYS FOR THIS FOOTBALL TEAM!" Thanks for the insight, Mike. Now could you take down the volume about 50 decibels?

But it's not just Irvin who's making me watch TV with ear plugs and ibuprofen by my side. ESPN also offers us Around the Horn, which is supposed to be a sports talk show but is actually more of a sports yell show. On it, four newspaper columnists -- as fellow print journalists, they really ought to know better -- shout at and insult each other as if they were in a bar after a few too many beers. I know some of these guys, and they're intelligent, reasonable men, but when they're in front of the cameras they become such screamers that even when I change the channel I'm pretty sure I can still hear them.

I understand this is sports television we're talking about, not church. I don't expect TV personalities to speak in soothing, measured tones. But I don't expect them to make the walls of my house shake, either. On Pardon the Interruption, an otherwise witty and charmingly quirky show featuring Washington Post columnists Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon, the "conversation" sometimes gets more than a trifle loud. Imagine, say, standing on the tarmac as two airplanes approach for a landing. That kind of loud. I'm willing to withstand it because Wilbon and Kornheiser have such great chemistry, but poor Kornheiser. There are times when I fear that his voice box is actually going to explode on the air.

The bellowing sportscaster used to be the exception, not the rule. But it seems like everybody's yelling these days, some of them so loudly they make Dick Vitale look like Marcel Marceau. In fact, the belief that louder is better can probably be traced back to Dickie V. and to a lesser extent, John Madden. They turned SLAM JAMS! and BOOMS! and WHAPS! into fame and fortune, making shouting fashionable.

It's hard to blame everyone for yelling, because it seems to get our attention, which is television's top priority. How can we flip past one of these shows and not stop for at least a few minutes to see what the commotion is about? There are so many different ways to spend our free time that the yelling is television's way of grabbing us by the lapel and making sure we don't drift away. It doesn't matter what these television screaming heads are saying, because their real message is, "HEY, PUT DOWN THE REMOTE! CHECK US OUT! DON'T GO CHECK YOUR E-MAIL OR PLAY VIDEO GAMES!"

I'm more likely to go watch a game in person, surrounded by thousands of wild, raucous fans. Fenway Park when the Yankees are in town, perhaps. Or Cameron Indoor Stadium for a Duke-North Carolina game. After what I've been hearing on the tube lately, I could use the peace and quiet.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor writes about a Hot Button topic every Monday on SI.com.