Did you hear about the guy who drinks a quart of brake fluid every night? He swears he can stop anytime he wants.
Speaking of those out of control, people who can’t stop soon enough, why are TV execs doing this to us? Why are they driven to such extraordinary measures to produce such wildly senseless productions?
And why do these voices in my head all sound like Moose Johnston?
Thursday night, alone — and I was alone — was enough to find out if it’s true what they say can happen if you stick a knife in a toaster.
Game 2 of the World Series on FOX: In a 0-0 game, Marco Scutaro, already identified by FOX’s Joe Buck and Tim McCarver as the Giants’ surprise postseason hitting star, was at bat. That’s when FOX decided it was a good time to cut to an on-camera, live report from Erin Andrews.
Hey, Andrews wasn’t hired from ESPN to be heard and not seen, ya know? And what did she have to report? She said she had spoken to some Giants before the game and they told her they really “want to get out of San Francisco up, two games to none.”
As she spoke, FOX, unfortunately, was forced to cut back to the game, just in time to show Scutaro called out at first on a close play. Still, Andrews kept talking.
As a close game entered the eighth, FOX, of course, turned its/our attention to the crowd. Once again, the bigger the moments, the less we were shown. Over the game’s last two outs — nine pitches — we were hit with 12 crowd shots, when two or three would’ve done the trick.
FOX continues to believe that such World Series “coverage” enhances the drama — as opposed to the trauma. Clearly, FOX still believes that had we been at the game, we would have spent much of the last six outs backs to the field, watching people watching.
Bucs-Vikings on NFL Network: At one point during the pregame, eight graphics were stacked on the left side of the screen, a graphic lined the top of the screen, a graphic toward the bottom identified the Vikings player being shown as Jared Allen, and beneath that an info crawl moved along the entire bottom of the screen.
Correct! Because the worst ideas are the most likely to be copied, NFLN gave us 11 graphics to read at once when ESPN quits at 10.
And, from an on-site set in Minnesota, NFLN sat five men, so each could share with us a sentence or two — sentences to hard labor if we were to make it through this attack on the central nervous system.
The game telecast — surprise! — was overwhelmed by Mike Mayock. He apparently warms up in his dressing room mirror with, “me-me-me-me-me,” before operating out of his own I-formation. Mayock’s like Simon Cowell — he seems to believe that every play, player and viewer await his approval.
A Thursday sampling: “I was disappointed in [Bucs QB] Josh Freeman last year.” “I really like the development of [Vikes DL] Brian Robinson.” After the Bucs completed a pass, “This is something I think makes sense, here.”
“I really like that call.” “I didn’t like the decision, there.” “What I like about Josh Freeman, here …” After a Doug Martin catch and TD run, “I love the burst.” “I love the slide to the left by [Vikes QB Christian] Ponder.” “I really like that call.”
Then there was the usual Mayockian: “They were hoping, off of play-action, to take a vertical shot.” And Vikes’ WR Jerome Simpson didn’t jump to catch a pass — Mayock never says jump — he “elevated.” And what would a game be unless someone “makes a play”?
Early, when Simpson dropped a pass, Mayock said, “He’s inconsistent,” adding, “Remember, the Bengals already let him go.”
Was that it, Simpson’s inconsistency? Or was it that last season he was convicted of felony drug trafficking and sentenced to 15 days in jail? That wasn’t worth a mention by Mayock?
And for all the adulation Mayock heaped on Vikes’ RB Adrian Peterson, not a word about his arrest this past offseason for resisting arrest after a hassle in a nightclub. But Mayock’s more know-it-all than tell-it-all.
ESPN’s “College Football Live”: Now that ESPN owns Heisman TV rights, the Heisman has become as big as an ESPY. Same way ESPN’s college football experts mocked the BCS championships as ludicrous — until ESPN bought its rights. Same way the Bobby Knight Goes Nuts Reel disappeared on the day ESPN hired Knight.
But “CFB Live” remains a stop where superficial knowledge and stat sheet-recitations pass for expertise.
Thursday, panelist Brian Griese wondered why Texas Tech QB Seth Doege isn’t a Heisman candidate — after all “he has thrown 28 TD passes!”
Thus, the fact that 11 of Doege’s TD passes came in home blowouts of teams that tacitly agreed to lose in exchange for their take of the gate — 70-14 over South Carolina State; 49-14 over New Mexico — means nothing.
But ESPN regards a transparent blowhard such as Stephen A. Smith as indispensible. Make mine brake fluid, Swifty; a double.
NFL replay is not so ‘instant’
An automatic “Instant” Replay review after a Bucs’ TD on Thursday took 3:45. Shucks, instant oatmeal takes under a minute.
* From a media self-afflicted by racial, ethnic and gender double-standards and selective pandering, Delmon Young’s going to make it through all ALDS, ALCS and now World Series telecasts untouched by an ugly, this season truth.
* FOX has the same postseason commercials as did TBS. We’ve been watching the same ads roughly four times per telecast for the last month.
* No good deed, etc.: FOX on Thursday showed tape — last season vs. this season — of Tiger Austin Jackson’s diminished stride, credited for cutting way back on his strikeouts. Good stuff. Only problem was that Jackson would strike out during that at-bat — and two other times in the game.
* From reader/blogger Bob Mantz: “Woke up yesterday and realized I had as many Tour de France victories as Lance Armstrong.”