FIRST things first. If Yankee president Randy Levine is so concerned with what’s seen and heard on YES, he should be more concerned with Giuseppe Franco than with Mike Francesa and Chris Russo.
That those bogus ProCede hair-loss treatment ads appear at any time on the Yankees’ network would be bad enough. That they’ve become the primary sponsor of Yankee games is a disgrace. The Yankees’ network can’t draw credible advertisers?
Beyond that, Levine’s meddlesome guidance has helped make YES a Yankee shilling station, a network more welcoming of dopes than of intelligent fans. But he’s not the first team or TV executive to think that systemic disregard for patrons reflects well on both him and his business. That Levine, for example, has no gripe with John Sterling, since Day 1, serving as the voice of YES, says plenty.
Funny, how so many big shots think so small.
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Memo to Fox: Please stop assigning Matt Vasgersian to Giants’ telecasts. Vasgersian is the kind of play-by-player who tries to draw attention through bold, smug comments, the kind that sound awfully rehearsed.
Last Sunday, during the second quarter of Niners-Giants, he suddenly declared, “There is absolutely nothing wrong with the G-men’s running game. While Tiki Barber sits on a couch every morning and talks about shoes and handbags with Ann Curry and Al Roker, Brandon Jacobs, Derrick Ward and Reuben Droughns – they’re running wild.”
Oh, how naughty, how provocative! But not everyone is impressed by cheap shots.
While it has become trendy to ridicule Barber as a dandy – something Vasgersian would not have done had Barber signed with Fox – Vasgersian apparently was unaware that Barber was among the very best all-purpose backs in Giants’ history, and over several seasons. Barber’s replacements would have to “run wild” for a long time to come close to Barber’s accomplishments.
In the second half, Vasgersian noted that Giant RBs – er, “G-men RBs” – to that point in the game, had dropped five passes. Oh.
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In Brian Kenny, Max Kellerman‘s new 1050 ESPN co-host, weekdays 10 a.m.- 1 p.m., we have an odd pick for modern sports-talk radio. For starters, Kenny, also an ESPN anchor and studio host, is neither braggart nor wise-guy. Although certainly not shy to offer a knowledge-based opinion or ask a tough question, he’s a modest and affable.
And while he knows his stuff, he’s smart enough to know that he’s not that smart and we’re not that stupid, thus he might say things such as, “I don’t know” and “It appears I was wrong.”
And he’s a sportsman and a gentleman, married with five kids, thus he’s not likely to lean on low-brow “guy-talk,” the last – and sometimes first – desperate ploy in sports-talk radio.
A New Yorker, Kenny, 45, likely will try to entertain with a pleasant style and a topical, thinking man’s take on matters. If that’s allowed.
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Nice, wasn’t it, watching and hearing members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra perform the National Anthem before Game 1 of the World Series, as opposed to some pop star with business connections to the televising network?