To err is human, forgive divine. But for crying out loud, once in a while give the Big Guy a shot at the latter!
The NYC Marathon fiasco was, well, a fiasco. As Kramer said while shvitzing in a sauna, “It’s like a sauna in here.”
All the mayor and the New York Road Runners folks had to do after blowing it was say just that: “We blew it.”
Followed by some pertinent filler: “After a year of preparation to prepare an event so valued by us, we lost sight of the far more serious picture. With 47,500 scheduled to run, to have hundreds of police, dozens of medical teams and other valuable energy resources diverted from hurricane relief to serve a five-borough event is something we didn’t fully grasp because, perhaps, we didn’t want to.
“We ask all New Yorkers for their understanding, but above all, their forgiveness.”
Now, what do you do after something like that? Telling such a truth would have disarmed every person who has ever done something they always will regret. For heaven’s sake, at least give us a chance to forgive!
But that’s not what we got. Instead of human relations we got spin, public relations.
At the 11th hour we were told the Marathon is a uniquely “unifying” New York event, and this one was causing “divisiveness” — not what the race is about, thus no Marathon.
Yes, it did cause divisiveness, a divide caused by a logical reaction to the illogical. The “divisiveness” was spoken as if it were someone else’s fault when it was self-made then stubbornly, unreasonably, sustained. The divisiveness was in response to a rotten decision at the worst of times.
The obdurate spin, almost to the starter’s gun, that the Marathon is a must because it “unifies” New Yorkers and her neighborhoods — while at the same time neighbors and neighborhoods were demonstrating their unity in trying to save or salvage one another’s homes — if not their lives — made for spectacularly insulting nonsense.
Yet, the Marathon folks had the colossal gall to portray themselves as victims — victims of a “negative media!”
Would that be the same media that have, starting in 1970, been relied upon to turn the NYC Marathon into a big deal; the same media that for 40 years told Marathoners’ wonderful stories?
Good grief, hundreds of homes on Staten Island, a short jog from where the Marathon begins, were instantly wrecked, reduced to, at best, campsites! But this show had to go on? This was such an easy one to get right, yet up until the last moments two-plus-two was a brainteaser!
Ch. 4 news on Friday night aired a chat with a fellow who said he had flown in from Amsterdam “after eight months of training.” He was angry the race had been canceled.
Ch. 4 cut it there. Damn. I wanted to know if the poor guy had clean towels at the hotel or wherever he was staying, whether his shower was hot and had good water pressure.
New Knicks voice hitting right notes
In Brendan Brown, it sounds as if Knicks radio on ESPN-NY has a strong successor to analyst John Andariese. Like Andariese, Brown pays attention to details, and doesn’t shriek unless he’s shocked by game circumstances or exposed wires.
Friday, Tyson Chandler was called for a reach-in. The Garden crowd was heard lightly booing. Brown, to an extra-large (transistor) audience, simply said, “It was a good call.”
It’s those little things — especially when a team’s analyst doesn’t see/say everything “a certain way” — that are important to radio audiences. The worst that can happen is that real fans develop trust in the man assigned to be their eyes.
* Milt Campbell, the finest forgotten athlete in U.S. history — in 1952, as a poor N.J. high school kid, he qualified for the Olympic decathlon knowing nothing about the event, then won silver, then the gold in ’56 — died over the weekend, at 78.
* CBS’ Jim Nantz, early in Steelers-Giants: “You look around, you can’t see an empty seat. … A lot of people were wondering, ‘Would it be filled?’ It is.”
Steelers fans travel, regardless, brother. Know a guy who quickly sold four, with a face value of $140 each, for $750 each.
* Professionals continue to figuratively butcher literally. WCBS Radio’s Gary Stanley Saturday morning reported the Knicks “literally toyed” with Miami. Guess the Heat showed up as Rock-’Em, Sock-’Em Robots.
* The King & His Court: Mike Francesa, Friday, during a sympathetic spiel about hurricane victims, nevertheless used that opportunity to remind all that when he goes to Knicks games, he sits courtside.
* Reader Keith Cavet asks if ’Bama-LSU, Saturday, set a record for most shirtless, inebriated fans at a game. Nah, it seemed that way only because CBS made sure to show every one of them.
The next day, yesterday, CBS, during Steelers-Giants, included a shot of a sign in the stands that read, “Staten Islanders, Stay Strong!”
TV norm: Making the simple complicated
Another Saturday loaded with Pigskin Latin and assorted stupid.
During Oregon-USC, Charles Davis noted a running back “gained good, positive yardage.” And Smith wasn’t easy to hear above Gus Johnson’s incessant screaming, which FOX apparently regards as credible play-by-play.
At 17-6, Pitt over Notre Dame on NBC, Mike Mayock: “Someone needs to make a play.” And again he spoke as if games are played for him, but he graciously allows us to watch. During a replay of a dubious interference call, a modest man might’ve said, “Looks like a bad call.” Mayock: “I really didn’t like that call.”
ESPN is so stuck in stupid it doesn’t realize we now recognize the P in ESPN stands for Pinocchio. Saturday, during Oklahoma State-Kansas State on ABC/ESPN, a crawl read: “BREAKING NEWS.” The news? Notre Dame won in OT, a game that ended nearly two hours earlier.
During Temple-Louisville, ABC/ESPN showed five replays of a nothing-extraordinary Louisville TD. Five. But an interesting call against a Temple player who was defending a pass in Louisville’s backfield — odd circumstances that left the announcers wondering about the rules — wasn’t replayed, not even once.
Late in Michigan-Minnesota, the Big Ten Network, rather than showing/telling us to stay tuned for the “State Farm Postgame Show,” showed/told us to, “Stay tuned for the State Farm Postgame Show, immediately after the game.”