What happened? When did TV and radio, for baseball’s biggest games, begin to replace, among others, Curt Gowdy, Vin Scully, Mel Allen, Bob Costas, Tony Kubek, Jack Buck, Bob Wolff and Lindsey Nelson with, among others, Chris Berman, Joe Morgan, Steve Lyons and now, Chip Caray.
When did broadcasting executives lose the ability to distinguish good from bad? Are none baseball fans?
Caray became TBS’s lead voice two years ago, the network’s first as a playoffs rights-holder. He immediately made it clear that he knows his baseball . . . expressions. He’s like an interpreter who can speak with a French accent but doesn’t know French. A sampler:
Twice in the 2007 Indians-Yankees series Caray told a national audience that “the winning run is on second” — once in the top of the ninth, the other in the bottom of the eighth.
Last year, he characterized a Red Sox-Rays game as, “A good pitchers duel.” Through four, Boston had two runs, six hits, three walks.
Caray adorns common realities with nonsense, needless throw-in words. Last year, B.J. Upton at bat: “He just missed a long home run his first time up when he flied out to [left fielder] Jason Bay.” In other words, he just missed a long home run by a lot.
Last year he described Game 7 of the ALCS as “pivotal,” as if there would be a Game 8. And when the Rays scored on Rocco Baldelli’s single, he exclaimed, “How big are two-out hits in the postseason!” Big, except at that moment there were none out. And in Caray’s world, batters can’t simply take ball four, they “coax a walk” – even if it appeared that the pitcher worked around him.
This year, with the one-game Tigers-Twins added, more where that came from. Tuesday, perhaps unwittingly — he often doesn’t seem to know what he’s watching — Caray badly confused a sensational game.
In the bottom of the ninth, 4-4, runner on second, Tiger third baseman Brandon Inge went into the hole, made a sweet stab then threw Orlando Cabrera out at first. Huge play.
Caray: “That saves a run!”
Saves a run? If it saved a run, it saved the game! It saved the season!
Caray, continuing: “If that gets through, who knows what happens.”
Who knows? You just told us — it saved a run. (Maybe.)
At 5-5 bottom of the 10th, Twins’ Alexi Casilla on third, Nick Punto’s liner was caught in left by Ryan Raburn. Casilla tagged and was thrown out. Spectacular stuff. Caray, however, saw it thusly: “Line drive, base hit!”
In the words of Hank Stram, “What? What! What!?”
Wednesday, Game 1 of Twins-Yanks, Caray couldn’t understand why manager Joe Girardi pitched Mariano Rivera with a big lead. He said Girardi surely would be asked to explain that. But Caray might have been the only one lost for the answer. Rivera hadn’t pitched since Sunday and there was no game, the next day.
Of Minnesota’s Orlando Cabrera: “He has played in the Division Series with Anaheim, the Yankees, Boston, Tampa Bay.” Where did that come from? Hasn’t Caray covered the playoffs? Certainly Yankees fans knew he never had played for the Yankees (or the Rays).
Caray did, later, provide a correction, which could stand as his strongest moment of this postseason. But it’s not his fault. If TBS execs believe him to be their best, why shouldn’t he be?
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At top of Twins-Yankees, TBS’s Craig Sager reported from the upper deck in right field: “There’s a very intense low pressure system off the coast of lower Maine . . . powering strong winds down from Canada, right down the Hudson River, right into New York City, specifically right through the South Bronx.” Sager gestured to home plate, then back to where he was standing.
Translation: It’s windy, blowing out to right.
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Greed Kills: Hey, Mr. Mayor, the first postseason game in new, smaller capacity, taxpayer-funded Yankee Stadium was 3,000 short of a sellout. . . . Kevin Smolen, well-regarded producer of Yankees telecasts since YES’s Day 1, in 2002, has left, his contract expired.
True Story: Cotton candy vendor in Yankee Stadium, Wednesday: “Get your cavities, here; get your root canals!” . . . David Feherty, Americanized Irish-born CBS golf commentator, tomorrow will be a sideline reporter on CBS College Sports Net’s telecast of Navy-Rice.
It has come to this: ABC/ESPN’s Brent Musburger, Saturday during Oklahoma-Miami, praised UM because, under third-year coach Randy Shannon, the school’s football team has had just one arrest.
Two 12-man teams playing in the U.S. vs. World Presidents Cup and NBC’s promos essentially holler, “Tune in to watch Tiger Woods!” Incidentally, Woods’ record in team play, Presidents Cup and Ryder Cup, is 24-24-3.