While it's old news that Dan Patrick apparently cut out of his not-yet-expired contract with ESPN to take a job with The Content Factory, it's surprising that Patrick wasn't hosting his radio show today. When he announced his departure, he said that the week of Aug. 13-17 would be his last week, and the fill-in hosts who have been serving in that time slot have been repeating this information, even as recently as last week.

But today, there was no Dan Patrick. There hasn't been any Dan Patrick since news leaked that he'd already found a new gig. It looks like there won't be any Dan Patrick on ESPN Radio ever again.

I have a confession to make.

All of this coverage of Barry Bonds and his quest to pass Hank Aaron as the all time HR leader? I haven't been paying attention.

This doesn't mean I'm not aware of how many homers he has, or when he's hit another one. That's too difficult to avoid -- it's on ESPN, scrolling across the bottom of the screen. It's on the news websites. It's on the ticker at the bottom of my web browser. I'm pretty sure there's blimps flying over our cities with hourly updates scrolling across them.

But I am not clicking on any of the stories to read them. I am changing the channel if the subject is broached. And I'm not watching the pitch-by-pitch coverage of his each and every at bat. I even change the radio station when it's being discussed ad nauseum.

Accuse me of burying my head in the sand, if you wish, but as far as I'm concerned, Henry Aaron is the HR King until someone doesn't need mysterious substances like the clear and the cream, or body armor that our troops in Iraq are envious of, to challenge the mark of 755. 

As was announced earlier this week, Dan Patrick will be leaving ESPN in August, which will end his radio show, which I have been listening to since it's inception.

Unlike the end of Tony Kornheiser's ESPN Radio show, I am less saddened by the departure of Patrick. He wasn't as awful as Colin Cowherd, who replaced Kornheiser, but Patrick's show had become increasingly annoying as the mountaintop from which he preached became higher and higher above the masses who listened to him.

If what has been reported is true, and Patrick's ESPN contract didn't expire until 2008, then his early departure to find other oppotunities reeks of hypocrisy. Just as recently as the end of the 2007 college basketball season, when the coaching carousel was going in full force, Patrick ripped coaches who were abandoning their existing contracts to take other jobs. New Kentucky coach Billy Gillespie took the brunt of his disgust, as he was a guest on a show when Dan was at his peak of ripping these college coaches.

From what it sounded like on today's show, Patrick might already be gone.  Guest host Scott Van Pelt gave the e-mail address to the show as radio@espnradio.com instead of the usual danpatrickshow@espnradio.com address.