Why are network second- stringers often better than the A-Teamers? What makes ESPN think the nation prefers Brent Musburger’s nonsense to Sean McDonough’s sense?
To that end, while we’re stuck with TBS’s No. 1 guy, Chip Caray, on Yankees-Twins, TBS’s second-string duo of Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson have helped make Phillies-Rockies a good watch and an even better listen.
If the test of game announcers is whether we would enjoy sitting with them at a ballgame, Anderson, third-year Brewers’ play-by-play man, and Simpson, ex-big leaguer and TBS regular, have scored high.
They have been alert, yet relaxed, pleasant and amusing without being silly or shticky. When something happens, they sound excited, not hysterical. They don’t choose to analyze every pitch and swing nor are they inclined to decorate their thoughts with extra fancy.
Get this: In Game 2, after Colorado’s Yorvit Torrealba took a pitch that obviously was high, you know what they said? Nothing. They seem to recognize that it’s TV. They let the telecasts breathe, allow games to sometimes speak for themselves. Small wonder they’re second-stringers.
(Simpson, incidentally, said his one claim to big league fame came with the Dodgers, last game of the 1978 season, when he was Gaylord Perry’s 3,000th strikeout. Afterward, it was discovered he actually was Perry’s 3,001st victim. So they looked back to find out who was the real No. 3,000. It was Simpson. He’d struck out in his previous at-bat in that game.)
*
Tough-talking Michael Kay, on his 1050 show Thursday, dismissed as bogus the Twins’ claim to have been worn out in their Game 1 loss to the Yankees. Kay mocked their claim of fatigue. Yup, arriving here at 3 a.m. after a 12-inning spectacular the day before, and after weeks of must-win baseball, including a doubleheader last week, for him is a non-issue.
If the Twins’ shoe was on the Yankees’ foot and the Yankees lost Game 1, Kay would have huffed and puffed that exhaustion is no excuse? He would have mocked those sissy Yankees who even suggested such a thing? Place your bets.
*
Golf Channel’s President’s Cup coverage reunited the ex-ABC pair — and opposing captains from last year’s Ryder Cup — Nick Faldo and Paul Azinger. What a treat!
Thursday, after a show and tell on Anthony Kim‘s gaudy red, white and blue belt buckle — “his MoJo,” Azinger called it — Kim hit a terrific shot. “You’re right,” said Faldo, “he does get his power from his bling.”
And when Justin Leonard had a 3½-footer on 18 to win his and partner Jim Furyk‘s alternate shot match vs. Retief Goosen and Y. E. Yang, Azinger said, “The only guy more nervous than Justin right now is Furyk, because he left him this.” Leonard missed, match halved.
But Golf Channel still can aggravate. Thursday and Friday, after repeatedly showing a crawl giving the day-end leaders of the European Tour’s Madrid Masters, to keep leaving live coverage of the Presidents Cup — live coverage of the best in the world — for a studio report on the Madrid event just seemed like a foolish way for Golf Channel to prove what it has and what it can do.
ESPN, America’s all-sports network, totally ignored the Presidents Cup yesterday. There was not a word to be found about it on any of the four ESPN networks’ news crawls. Hey, if it’s not on ESPN or ABC, it’s not worth knowing about — and that stinks.
*
State of the Art: What a choice for Yankees-Twins. John Sterling on WCBS radio, Joe Morgan on 1050-ESPN radio, Caray on TBS. And all three broadcasts included a stern warning not to re-transmit without written consent!
Remarkably, Caray on Friday asked manager Joe Girardi a good in-game question: “As a former catcher, what do Joe Mauer‘s accomplishments, three batting titles in his young career, mean to you?” Of the unsuccessfully recruited Florida State football player, Girardi said, “He’s amazing. . . . I wish he was playing football.”
Still, with two outs in the bottom of the fourth, Caray said, “Six up, six down for Blackburn, in the game,” as if Twins’ starter Nick Blackburn were pitching a no-hitter after two! But he says such all the time! He has no sense of standard baseball talk! Is there no one at TBS to straighten him out?
*
Mike Francesa, always eager to let us know he’s an insider — and we’re not — Friday had John Flaherty on. Kept calling him, “Flash.” Yeah, they played A-ball together.
From eyewitness/journalist Allan Kreda: Two games into Twins-Yankees, TBS kept showing ostensibly live shots of the Empire State Building, lighted in red and green. But during Game 1 the lighting was white. During Game 2, in recognition of Columbus Day/Italy, it was in green, white and red.
Couldn’t TBS save its raunchy TBS and TNT programming promos, its drop-pants/have-sex movie ads and erectile dysfunction commercials for a time other than afternoon, evening and primetime postseason MLB telecasts? But as long as the checks clear why would Bud Selig care? And maybe that’s all TBS has.