WHEN did preposterous replace analysis? Friday’s ALDS games made for an Open-All-Nite baloney and geez buffet, preposterous statements, one after another, served as indisputable facts.
First, during TBS’ Yanks-Indians Game 2 telecast, Chip Caray twice told us – once in the bottom of the eighth, once in the top of the ninth – that, “The winning run is on second.”
Caray was lucky neither scored or he’d have been left to explain why the game continued, anyway.
Next, in the top of the third of Game 2 of Angels-Red Sox, Garret Anderson hit a bloop to right. Anderson often isn’t much for running to first during regular-season games, thus it seemed worth noting whether he’d find a playoff game more worthy of greater effort. He didn’t.
One could see, live, Anderson get a slow start, choosing to watch first, run later. The ball fell. Anderson, however, made second.
On TBS, analyst Steve Stone went into a spiel about how doubles often are the result of players who hustle and how Anderson hustled, all the way. “That’s the Angels’ trademark,” he said, “they run hard on everything.”
Terrible guess. TBS next aired tape that showed Anderson strolling down the line, before finally running. The hard evidence showed Stone to be 100 percent wrong. But that provided him the opportunity to say, “Oops, I was wrong.” Beyond establishing a good-faith relationship with his audience, what harm could come from it?
Instead, Stone, like so many others, stuck with his bogus claim. This is TV, so remember: Forget what you see; believe what you’re told.
Manny Ramirez hit a two-out, three-run homer to end that game. Later, on ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight,” analyst Orestes Destrade might have told us that Ramirez has a flair for the dramatic, or that he’s clutch, or something like that.
Instead, Destrade told viewers of the all-sports network that, “Manny Ramirez is the consummate professional.” Destrade looked and sounded serious.
OK, well if he says so, but where would that leave everyone else, starting with those who haven’t, throughout their careers, played baseball with a clear and steady indifference? Expert analyst Destrade said that one of baseball’s all-time slackers – the man who inspired the rationalization, “Manny being Manny” – is “the consummate professional.”
Up is down, night is day, left is right. Preposterous. But we’re supposed to be too stupid to know any better.
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It took a lot for ESPN anchor Stan Verrett to report Illinois’ win over Wisconsin as “an upset.” He had to ignore the fact that Illinois, 5-1, is a good team, that it played at home, which was why it was a three-point favorite, and that previously undefeated Wisconsin nearly lost at UNLV and struggled at home to beat The Citadel.
And Verrett ignored all of that in favor of Wisconsin’s No. 5 ranking, thus he reported – and to many who knew better – that Illinois’ win was an upset.
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It’s all so ugly, so tough to indulge. Instead of celebrating Cincinnati’s win at Rutgers, QB Ben Mauck stood mocking the Rutgers crowd. (Last month, RU’s crowd chanted vulgar taunts at defeated Navy players).
And the play before Stanford’s last-chance TD pass – the one that beat USC – USC DE Kyle Moore ran into the end zone to get in the face of the intended Stanford receiver following the third-down incompletion.
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Because ESPN showed three replays of the previous play when only one was needed, the next play, a pass to the RU one yard line, setting up UC’s third-quarter go-ahead TD, was missed.
But providing silly excess is what TV now does best. Yesterday, after one play from scrimmage in Jets-Giants, a CBS graphic read: “C. Pennington 0/1, O Yds.”
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There is no unqualified, misleading stat that won’t be presented as enlightenment on CBS’ NFL pregame. And if anyone among the laugh-aholic panelists actually says something funny, watch out. What’s not worth a smirk sets these guys off.
And yesterday, Shannon Sharpe both raised and refuted a non-story, saying Vince Young has “answered all the questions about whether or not he can throw the football. He has proven that he can throw the football.”
What questions? Not from those who saw him play in college or last year in the NFL. Young was the third pick in the 2006 draft. Why suggest that he had to overcome doubters?