SLOWLY I turn, step by step . . .
For as many complaints about silly, indiscriminate graphics this column includes, such whining hasn’t appeared up here, at the top. But enough is enough. The cumulative effect of doing small but steady dirt to game telecasts is a torture that demands a breaking point.
We read graphics, especially those posted over live action, because, 1) We presume that a network wouldn’t divert our attention to read something unworthy of our attention, and, 2) Most graphics are impossible to miss; you can’t look around them.
Saturday, four minutes into Xavier-UCLA, the score was 7-6, UCLA, and the ball was in play when CBS decided it was time to provide reading material the rest of the way. CBS threw up a large graphic, one carrying this news flash: “Points In The Paint: Xavier 6, UCLA 6.”
Of course, if you have a fundamental grasp of college basketball, you know that any data accumulated in the first four minutes – the first one-tenth of regulation – is almost always insignificant and/or aberrational. There’s rarely anything worth telling anyone, let alone everyone, especially in exchange for an obstructed view.
Besides, in Bill Raftery, CBS had an analyst on the scene. If he thought points in the paint, four minutes in, to be an issue worthy of interruption, he would have let us know. And it wasn’t as if someone might have had points in the point in his/her fantasy league or office pool.
Put it this way: If the fellow seated next to you – during any game – kept waving in your face signs that carried idiotic info, you’d slip your fist into your jacket pocket, extend your index finger, then elbow the guy to show him that the gun you’re packing is aimed at his heart.
Yesterday, it was 20-13, Memphis, when a CBS graphic brought news that Texas had three dunks, Memphis none. Slowly, I turn . . .
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Post news-side editor Dom Marrano is retiring Thursday after nearly 37 years. Having met Marrano my first day on the job, as a copy boy/grunt in 1973, he has since gifted me laughs, hard truths, Brooklyn-basted wisdom and, most importantly, his 20-20 perspective. To that end, there has been lots of Dom Marrano in this column.
We all lean on people to remain upright, and I often chose Marrano for support. A more decent, principled person I’ve never met in this business. The worst Dom can ever do is finish tied for first.
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Pinstripe Pride: Tuesday night Yankee Stadium was rented out to QVC, which the home shopping network and new Hall of Famer Goose Gossage turned into a clip joint. While selling over-priced autographed stuff, Gossage wore a baseball cap, not a Yankees cap, an endorsement cap.
Bud Ball: As reader Andy Bessinger notes, the A’s Emil Brown hit his first 2008 regular season home run (vs. the Red Sox in Japan). Three days later, Brown hit his first 2008 spring training home run.
TBS’s new national Sunday telecasts will be blacked out within MLB’s Extra Innings package, but regional productions of those games will appear. TBS’s first, with play-by-player Chip Caray, is Sunday, Red Sox-Jays, 1 p.m. . . . MSG/CBS’s Gus Johnson has joined those who seem more impressed by (hollers louder after) breakaway slam-dunks than points scored off well-played basketball.
Sometimes reporting “the latest news” means being the last to know better. Saturday afternoon, hours after I read Joel Sherman’s column about Joe Girardi’s handshake and chat the day before with Jeff Loria – Girardi was quoted about it – WFAN’s Yankees reporter, Sweeny Murti, reported that Loria and Girardi haven’t spoken to each other since Loria dumped Girardi, two years ago.
Consider the complete, left-unspoken foolishness of Manny Ramirez-like home plate posing. Often, when the ball hits the wall, the batter, having delayed running, is forced to slide into second (as opposed to standing up). Sliding increases the risk of injury. Selfish, in such cases, means running, not posing.
When MSG’s Sam Rosen, during Thursday’s Devils-Rangers, erroneously suggested that there were two penalties about to be called – Paul Mara for hooking Zach Parise, Parise for taking a dive – it was hard not to laugh. That’s like suggesting that Mara will be penalized for slashing and Parise for pretending to have been slashed.