CONTEXT. It’s a first cousin to reality, often removed.
Ian Eagle, on CBS’s Chargers-Jets, Sunday, did a remarkable thing. He gave context a shot.
Eagle said that the last time these teams met, the Chargers’ star running back, LaDainian Tomlinson, wasn’t much of a factor. But then Eagle added that because the Jets won that game, 44-13, the Chargers were forced to throw early and often, which was not in Tomlinson’s best rushing statistical interests.
What in the name of Sean Salisbury was Eagle up to? Is providing context on NFL telecasts even allowed?
We’re told that it is allowed (at least there are no rules against it), but it’s rarely tried. Heck, if context were provided, it would be too confusing for the people who have tried to explain football as a matter of add-and-divide numbers, thus there would be a lot fewer graphics blocking the view. And that’s certainly not allowed.
Also, Sunday afternoon, 14 NFL games were played. In eight of them, the losing team had better third-down-conversion stats than the winning team. The Packers, for example, were 8-of-16 on third downs, the Bears 3-of-8. Final score: Bears 21, Packers 10.
In context, that’s not all that unusual. But context was never even considered when the NFL and its TV networks and the newspapers that run bulked-up box scores first decided that third-down stats – stats that inanely provide that all third downs are the same – are significant.
How Knute Rockne and Vince Lombardi were able to succeed without third-down-conversion stats is a secret that both, unfortunately, have taken to their graves.
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Ichiro Suzuki will soon, it appears, break the record – 257 – for most hits in a season. And that’s not an achievement that should be taken lightly, but it should be taken in context. But it won’t.
Suzuki, as of this morning, is 10 hits short of George Sisler’s record. Suzuki has played in 151 games, batted 660 times and is hitting .374. Sisler, for the 1920 St. Louis Browns, had 257 hits in a 154-game season (he played in all of them) during which he batted 631 times and hit .407.
We’re not calling for an asterisk, we’re calling for context. In context, Sisler’s record, although broken, will remain slightly more impressive – and should be remembered that way. But it won’t. That’s the thing about context; it can bruise or even ruin a good story.
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ESPN’s Dan Patrick, in this month’s ESPN the Magazine, conducts an interview with Giants star pitcher Jason Schmidt. After asking Schmidt whether he might win the Cy Young – Schmidt replies that it would be a “jinx” to discuss it – Patrick asks the following:
“Did you ever undress Kris Benson’s wife, Anna, in your mind?” The magazine prints the words, “undress Kris Benson’s wife” in over-sized, bold letters so that they jump off the page. Schmidt says, “Never,” Patrick returns to baseball questions.
Was Patrick’s question about Benson’s wife both out of line and out of context? It would seem that way, except, given what ESPN has become – and what veteran, formerly circumspect ESPN anchors/personalities have been forced to become – the question reeked of context.
In fact, Patrick later asks Schmidt – and forgive me, here, but it’s a direct quote – about “a fart machine.” Those three words also appear in over-sized, bold letters. Oh, you naughty, naughty little boys at ESPN!
With ESPN now so often exploiting sports as a prop through which to sell its “Brand” and “Attitude,” we’re surprised Patrick asked Schmidt any baseball questions. It was the baseball questions that were out of context.
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Kickers: Grambling vs. Bethune-Cookman, seen Saturday on CSTV, included a 15-yard penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct – against Grambling’s band . . . Nelson Bingham, a New Jersey native, is the longtime public address announcer for home football games at Earlham College, a small, Quaker-affiliated school in Richmond, Ind. During his down-time, Bingham also serves as the school’s acting president.
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Lookalikes: Patrick Pelayo of Manhattan submits omnipresent local baseball broadcaster Ed Randall and actor Rowan Atkinson, a.k.a., “Mr. Bean.”