Once again, as we now regularly do at this time of year, we stand in awe of Fox’s World Series coverage.
We’re blessed, living in a special time. No other network has been both so eager and adroit at blanket, box-seats-to-bleachers coverage of the home team crowd watching any event, let alone the World Series.
In fact, Fox’s coverage of the crowd is now so complete the network was able to show a Cardinals fan at the very moment St. Louis pinch-runner Kolten Wong was picked off first base to end Game 4. Fox was able to show this fan live! Not on tape, but live! As the throw and tag were made, we were, well, excluded.
But, as Branch Rickey said, “Luck is the residue of design,” and no network was more prepared to miss an unfathomable end to a World Series game than Fox.
You see, since Fox began to televise the World Series, in 1996, its shot-callers have had it in their heads the games, while important, are no more so than live shots of people doing what we tuned in to do — watch the game.
Additionally, Fox has always figured endless crowd shots — close-ups, bunch shots, thousands at once and three in a row — add to the drama, help us grasp games’ biggest moments, as if we otherwise would have no idea.
Fox also has always figured those least likely to be watching the World Series — folks not normally inclined to watch baseball — should be served first, thus those who might want to spend 3 ½ hours eyeballing anxious fans in the stands should move to the head of the line.
And if you wanted to know the score, inning or count — even on a 40-inch TV, even as you watched people watching the World Series — Fox refused to make such need-it-now pertinent info large enough to be quickly or clearly read in its here-and-now pertinent info box. Is that a 5 or a 6? An 8 or a 9?
Yet, we got more than our fair share of what wasn’t needed. After all, why would Fox have the guys in the booth tell us Shane Victorino has a sore back when the network can “send it” to Erin Andrews to tell us?
And so here it was. What Fox had planned for and worked toward all these Octobers finally paid off. It was in a close-up crowd shot — a nervous woman dressed for ice fishing — when Wong was picked off first to end Game 4 of the World Series. Worst seat in the house.
As Howard Cosell said as per the death of 88-year-old George Halas, “It was inevitable.”
Intent on ruining the game
The umpires made a quick, decisive and correct call on that obstruction play to end Game 3 of the World Series, yet, because of the attention paid to the rule, knee-jerkers have called for it to change, based on whether an obstruction is unintentional.
What difference does it make? Who intentionally strikes out? Who intentionally throws a wild pitch? Who unintentionally lays down a bunt?
Meanwhile, although Game 3 will be recalled for its freaky ending, that it would have or should have ended on a wild throw down the left-field line by Boston catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia becomes a footnote.
So, we’re left to presume Roger Goodell would have no trouble addressing a North-American Indian as a “redskin.” I wonder, then, what that makes us?
Pleased to see Fox Sports 1 has hired former St. John’s guard Tarik Turner, 38, as a first-string college hoops analyst, to work with Gus Johnson and Bill Raftery. Turner, who sees the floor and speaks the game succinctly and applicably, for several years was the star of SJU’s subterranean radio calls.
Oddest score of the NBA’s Week 1 came from the start of Wednesday’s Heat-Sixers: Sixers 19, Heat 0. … Ron Darling has joined MLB Network as an offseason studio regular.
The second Mike Zaun (“Mike’s On”) online parody of Mike Francesa is as brilliant as the first. Francesa moves from his expert, dead-wrong 1776 analysis of the Revolution to the Civil War (the Confederates are a lock). He tells a caller who wants to discuss Alex Rodriguez, “We’re not doing A-Rod, today. Call back in 150 years.”
Reader Robert Franzese reminds me I forgot Ralph Kiner’s birthday; he turned 91 on Sunday. On behalf of all Kiner fans, everywhere, happy Father’s Day.
One of these days a sideline reporter, at halftime, is going to forget and ask a coach, “Is this blouse too revealing? Not revealing enough?”
It’s not the team so much as the ballpark
ALL Natural, No Context Added: In Game 4 of the World Series, Joe Buck reported Boston’s 853 runs this season made it “by far the top-scoring offense.” But the Red Sox regularly are among the highest-scoring teams, the park in which they play half their games having something to do with it (for both sides, too). In 2003 the Red Sox also scored the most by far — 961! They finished six games back in the AL East.
I’ve never known a sportscaster, off air, to refer to a season, as in “the 2010 season,” as a “campaign,” as in “the “2010 campaign.” He or she would know that’s goofy talk. But on the air, while talking to hundreds of thousands? Always!
Reader Kurt Epps wonders why warm-up throws aren’t factored into pitch counts. Me? How about 90 mph pickoff throws?
It’s a twisted world. Jay Z, the sports agent who throughout his public career has called black men “n—as” and hard-sold every degrading, vulgar stereotype of young African-American men and women, has been called out and called on to express and demonstrate his racial sensitivity in that Barney’s profiling matter.
The Devils’ WFAN analyst, Sherry Ross, remains concise, alert, informed, informative. Late in New Jersey’s 2-1 win against the Lightning on Tuesday, she explained Marty Brodeur chose to clear the puck rather than stop play to avoid a near-goal faceoff. Nice. We could “see” that.
What used to be called “scrambling,” a la Fran Tarkenton, now on TV is called, “extending the play.”