It Figured.
For all the dugout shots, all the unwarranted examinations of every play, every pitch and every swing spoken from a three-man booth, for all the clutter, the gizmos and magnified freeze frame replays, when it really, really counted, all the computerized lights were on but no one answered the door bell.
In the bottom of the 13th, of Game 4 Thursday night/Friday morning, the Orioles up a run on the Yankees with one out, Robinson Cano stepped into the left-handed batter’s box — one of the two that TBS attaches to a computer that tracks every pitch. But while TBS assiduously tracked every pitch, it had big trouble tracking the game.
With Cano batting, who was on deck? Alex Rodriguez, the highest-paid batter in the history of baseball, was scheduled to bat next, but he had been removed for a pinch-hitter the night before. Would it happen again?
The answer might lie in the on-deck circle, but with Cano batting, we were neither shown it nor told who occupied it.
And after Cano flew out, and Eric Chavez came to bat, it took until the third pitch for someone from TBS — Ernie Johnson— to finally mention that, at this moment in the Yankees’ 166-game season, Chavez was pinch-hitting for Rodriguez.
Before it struck him to mention Rodriguez’s absence, Johnson said that Chavez “has pop.” True, he has 248 career HRs — but that’s 399 fewer than Rodriguez.
TBS was so completely lost on all fronts during these moments that the Yankees dugout wasn’t even panned to find Rodriguez. We did, however, get a close-up of CC Sabathia, scheduled to start Game 5 if the Yankees lost.
Given what happened the night before — pinch-hitting Raul Ibanez for Rodriguez down a run in the ninth — TBS, upon returning from commercials to start the bottom of the 13th, should have been tracking Joe Girardi, live or on tape, to observe him breaking the news to Rodriguez.
But nothing.
Yet, for the previous 4 hours and 30 minutes, Johnson, John Smoltz and Cal Ripken immersed us, soaked us — tried to drown us — in info, theory, an ongoing study of every pitch Phil Hughes threw, might throw, should throw, how he should throw it and where he should throw it, plus sage reminders that a fly ball with one out can score the runner from third.
Rodriguez pulled for a pinch-hitter with the Yankees down a run, two out, bottom of the 13th in Game 4 of the best-of-five ALDS? Not only didn’t TBS see it coming, missed it while it happened, then missed it again after it happened.
Nurse?!? Forget the nurse, call Dr. Kevorkian.
CBS deal shouldn’t mess with WFAN
No Matter what happens with this new CBS Sports Radio AM/FM confederation of WFAN and WRXP (101.9 FM) — no matter which New York baseball team it lands, renews or loses, no matter which programming, local or national, is assigned to which station — management would be nuts to mess with FAN’s 660-AM as its primary sports stop.
In 660, CBS owns a signal that nearly 24 hours a day can be heard from Maine to Maryland, from Sandy Hook to Zanesville.
For CBS to place its most prized goods — local big league baseball, for example — anywhere but on 660 would be crazy.
Remember, ESPN Radio-NY’s switch from 1050-AM to 98.7-FM was predicated on 1050’s badly diminished signal, sundown to sunup.
If ESPN-NY wanted to make a play for the Mets’ or Yankees’ radio rights — and it’s now open season for both — it couldn’t be on a station that can’t be heard at night just a few miles beyond Manhattan.
If CBS Radio thinks it can land both the Mets and Yankees for next season, one for each of its sports stations — and an extremely expensive rights endeavor — fans of both teams should know that one of the two will be treated with greater apparent fondness and a better signal (on 660).
One rights owner of two or more same-season teams’ games inevitably shorts one of the teams.
Consider how Cablevision — with Rangers, Devils and Islanders TV rights — ranks them in that order.
The Islanders, often relegated to MSG-Plus 2, may as well be the Dry Gulch Buzzards of the Adobe Desert League.
Best case for Yankees and Mets fans: CBS buys rights to one team and places it on 660-AM, ESPN buys the other for 98.7-FM.
Mayock can’t talk straight
Rather than sentencing a felon to hard time, a judge should order him to sit through a tape of the first quarter of Thursday’s Steelers-Titans on NFL Network; see if that doesn’t scare the bad guy straight.
Unable to say “gain” or “loss,” analyst Mike Mayock again went long-form, noting that plays produced “positive” or “negative” yardage. He again suggested — twice, in fact — that players “make a play” and, once insisted that receivers “can’t drop passes,” soon followed by his insistence that receivers “can’t drop the football.”
Four times in just the first two minutes, Mayock, during a Titans’ drive, said, “I like what I’m seeing.” Later in the quarter he added another, “I like what I’m seeing,” plus an, “I love the design of this play.”
As for the Steelers offense, Mayock said, “People have been complaining about their lack of verticality.”
He also told us the Titans had just “faked the bubble-screen.”
We got QB ratings numbers, Red Zone efficiency numbers and all sorts of misapplied and misunderstood data that doesn’t matter. Then there was the instant replay rule. It took just 4 minutes and 20 seconds to uphold a Steelers TD.
And this was just the first quarter! You don’t think an audience of cons forced to watch and listen to that wouldn’t be deterred from returning to a life of crime? It’s worth a shot, no?
* High school through the pros, players are now injured during obligatorily excessive post-play celebrations, often the immodest kind. The TV/photo op — real or imagined — supersedes sense. Thus, Giants rookie RB David Wilson, after scoring Sunday, performed a backward flip — a stunt that creates a maximized opportunity to break your neck.
* About the only thing we know for sure about today’s Colts-Jets telecast is that CBS will ambush viewers with a vulgar promo for “Two and a Half Men” or “Mike & Molly.” Remember, there’s now nothing networks find more appropriate to promote during sports telecasts than the inappropriate.
* Gee, ESPN hasn’t televised its old reliable Bobby Knight-goes-nuts reel in nearly four years. Wonder why?