Given what we’re often shown — or not shown — during events’ biggest moments, ever wonder what the same TV directors would choose to shoot for their home videos?
Perhaps, on Christmas morning, just as Junior bolted down the stairs, we would see a cut to crowd shot — the gold fish tank in the living room.
Or, at Junior’s second birthday party, when, just after Junior blew out the candles, we would see a shot of the front lawn — taken from the roof.
To that end, TBS’ now-completed coverage of the MLB postseason was, again, flabbergasting for its senselessness, for its failure to recognize then show what the heck was going on. And right to the very end …
Thursday night when Tigers first baseman Prince Fielder caught the fly ball to sweep the Yankees from the ALCS, TBS chose to spend a total of 3 (three) seconds on the field, watching the Tigers rush to celebrate, before forcing us to board the last train to Dumbtown.
TBS next gave us an overhead shot, taken from a blimp. It was such a worthless shot it could have been file footage or been taken in the third inning.
Next, TBS cut to a crowd shot, another worthless view given that the crowd was watching what we wanted to watch. Again, for what this shot was worth, it could have been canned, lifted from the 1999 Ohio State-Michigan game.
TBS briefly returned us to the field to show some of the celebration, but then it was off again to two more worthless blimp shots and four more worthless crowd shots.
What’s particularly exasperating about such fancy but senseless abandonments of the primary story — and every network, to varying degrees, is guilty — is that there are hundreds of thousands sports fans watching, fans with zero TV experience, who could have and would have done a far better job.
Pick one. Any one. He or she would know to stick with an on-field celebration. As a sports fan, he/she would know to show millions of other sports fans — and all viewers, for that matter — what they logically would want to see and expect to see as it’s happening!
Oh, well, Willie Mayes.
Goal in one: Phil aces NFL analysis
The Someone Gets It Football Analyst of the Week: Phil Mickelson. No fooling.
Mickelson, a Chargers fan and a pregame guest on ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” Broncos-Chargers game, was asked by Stuart Scott who would have the most passing yards, Philip Rivers or Peyton Manning.
Mickelson chose Manning, “because [the Broncos will] be playing from behind.”
Not only was he correct — Manning had more pass yards and Denver won from down, 24-0 — Mickelson cited a logic-based, circumstance-driven regularity that has thrown ESPN experts for 25 years!
Speaking of thought-deprived stats, last week on NBC, Stanford’s Drew Terrell was shown preparing to field a Notre Dame punt, when a graphic appeared: Terrell, in seven returns, averages 20 yards per — including a 76 yarder for a TD.
From that add-then-divide data we’re supposed to conclude that he averages 20 yards per return? We’ve seen such graphics for decades, yet there is no average punt return, just as, with 22 people moving at once and circumstances changing after every play, there is no average play in any football game!
But that hasn’t stopped anyone from stuffing databases with such nonsense, later to appear for our enlightenment. And it never will.
* History knows the 1941 Yankees-Dodgers World Series for one play: Mickey Owens’ passed ball.
The Yankees led the Series, 2-1, but were down a run in the top of the ninth in Game 3. With two out and a 3-2 count, Tommy Henrich swung and missed. But the ball got past Owens. Henrich bolted to first. From there, the Yankees scored four runs, won the game, then the Series, 4-1.
Today? There’s a good chance that a player of Henrich’s star status would have swung, missed, then headed to the dugout, or, if in the mood, jogged toward first.
* Funny, what sports fans recall from when they were kids.
Brooklyn-born Eddie Yost, an 18-year AL infielder, died Tuesday at 86. Called the “Walking Man” for his ability to reach first without hitting a ball fair, Yost’s last two seasons were in 1961 and ’62 with the expansion L.A. Angels.
There was a day in ’61 or ’62 — I was nine or 10 — when I watched an Angels-Yankees game on channel 11. In one at-bat, Yost fouled off 10 consecutive pitches before ball four.
And I recall Phil Rizzuto hollering, laughing, amazed. Funny, how certain things stick.
ND knows how to treat fans
Two Jersey guys, Steven Blutig (Lehigh, ’93) and Jason Esralew (Stanford, ’93), wanted to give their sons a taste of a big-time college football. So off the four of them went, to last week’s Stanford-Notre Dame game.
Blutig: “We walked around campus wearing Stanford caps and shirts, and not once were we even heckled. It was the opposite. We heard, ‘Welcome to Notre Dame,’ and were asked if we needed directions. It was remarkable.
“Lunch for four cost as much as a beer at Yankee Stadium. When the rain came, people offered to share their umbrellas. I was looking for Alan Funt, as if it were all a put-on.
“Inside the stadium, the crowd was pro-Notre Dame — not anti-Stanford. After a Stanford turnover, a student seated behind me clapped extra loud in my ear — but then he apologized for being a jerk.
“We figured that besides people just being nice, the other reason for the polite behavior was the absence of booze. I did not see one person who appeared drunk.”
* During last week’s West Virginia-Texas Tech, ABC/ESPN’s Sean McDonough noted Tech “brought in 11 junior college transfers this season.”
Eleven? Whoa. In many cases, players good enough to play Division I first play junior college ball due to serious academic or social problems. Then again, what has Tech got to lose? Four of its non-transfer players have been arrested since March, including one a few hours after the WVU game.
* Next year, maybe TBS can present the playoffs with more than two endlessly repeated commercials — All State’s featuring Kerry Wood and Andre Dawson (cute, but enough!), and the Verizon ad with that kid playing the tuba.