Michael Kay
TIME’S UP: Ichiro Suzuki delivers one of the 26 hits in Thursday’s loss to the Rangers, which took an “unmanageable 3:34” according to Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay (inset). (
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It’s hardly a classified secret that many play-by-players, TV and radio, are stuck in — and on — their, ugh, routines.
As if there had previously been much doubt, a few years ago, ESPN’s Chris Berman fully revealed himself to be a relentlessly self-promoting shtick-artist during a telecast from Wrigley Field.
A ball had already cleared the left-field wall for a home run, when Berman realized that he’d forgotten to apply his “Back, back, back” bit. So he said it anyway, describing the left fielder’s tracking of the ball’s as “back, back, back,” even after the left fielder had quit on it because the ball had already landed in the seats.
Then there was John Sterling’s choice to lead with his “Thuhhhh Yankees win!” bit — all Yankee wins sound alike! — rather than report that Dwight Gooden had just pitched a no-hitter.
Then there are the formulaic hollerers, such as Fox’s Gus Johnson and CBS’ Kevin Harlan, play-by-players who land gigs and continue to make good impressions on their bosses simply by screaming contrived excitement at anything and everything.
Was that an 8-yard play, an 80-yarder or was Harlan or Johnson just electrocuted? Hard to tell. Unless it’s on TV, where the con is self-evident.
And it’s now clear that Michael Kay’s standard postgame sense of “manageable” vs. “unmanageable” is predicated solely on how long a game runs. Circumstances — those he witnessed and described over several hours — are to be ignored or quickly forgotten.
When Kay, several years ago, began to classify long-running, slow-moving, dreadfully dull games as “unmanageable” — a 4-2, 8 1/2-inning game that ran 3:25, for example — his attention to the matter, especially with 11 p.m. and/or sleep nearing, was welcomed and appreciated.
Orioles-Yankees and Red Sox-Yankees games, for no good reason, often made Gone With The Wind seem like the coming attractions.
But now …
Thursday’s Rangers-Yankees game, according to Kay on YES, ran “an unmanageable 3:34.”
No, it didn’t.
Given that he called the game — every pitch — Kay, more than anyone, should have recognized that it easily and logically could have lasted four hours, that 3:34 for such a game actually was pretty good, perhaps on the quick side.
The game went a full nine innings. Sixteen runs were scored; there were 26 hits, eight walks, and two errors. Only one home run. In a game in which Texas lost a four-run lead, then the Yankees took the lead, then Texas went back up, a total of 10 pitchers were used.
And it wasn’t that the pitchers were slow to throw pitches; it was a case of them having to throw 327 of them.
It all stood to reason. For Kay to report that 3:34 to play such a game — a game in need of lots of managing from both managers — was “unmanageable,” seemed another case of placing one’s broadcasting “routine” ahead of context, ahead of reality, which, for those who watched, was difficult to miss.
Plenty of schools are still sweet on ‘Honey Badger’
Tyrann “Honey Badger” Mathieu, kicked off LSU’s football team on Aug. 10 — reportedly for a second failed drug test — was sought by 20 other colleges by Wednesday, according to the AP.
Hey, anyone who can play football deserves, at minimum, a third chance to attend college on a full scholarship.
Our colleges and universities don’t get enough credit for the athletes they recruit then prime for careers in pro sports. That’s why today we’re saluting, once again — and for over 30 years and still counting — the University of Miami.
D.J. Williams played at Miami. Last week the Broncos’ starting linebacker was convicted of a 2010 DWI. He’d also been busted for a DWI in 2005. He already was facing a six-game suspension for failing a drug test.
At least he hasn’t killed anyone. Yet.
In the hard-hitting words of college and pro football broadcasters, Williams has “personal problems” that, for head coaches, create “distractions.”
Meanwhile, it would be nice if LSU released the names of those 20 schools that asked about recruiting Mathieu. You know, just so prospective students, current students and their families know to what board and tuition payments are applied, and what kinds of student-athletes are invited to enroll on full scholarships.
But that might violate the code of big-time college football confidentiality, known in other rackets as omerta’.
1st-round knockout by Twitter
Q: What will costumed, media-socialized kids be saying this Halloween? A: “Twit or Tweet!”
Been telling ya’ll for years: For those who call the shots in TV, there is no idea so ridiculous that it’s unworthy of duplication, repetition and perpetuation.
And now TV’s sense-defying rush to add Twitter to the visual detritus — to further distract from and diminish the view of live sports — has made for a fresh layer of stupid!
Consider that boxing rounds last just three minutes. Consider that one quick shot to the jaw could end any bout. Consider Twitter.
Yet, Showtime’s boxing cards now include — on the screen, during the rounds — transcribed, often promotional tweets for viewers to read.
That’s too ridiculous to be true, too absurd to write as satire or a goof. It can’t be true; it’s too stupid to be true.
But it’s the fact, Jack: During boxing matches, Showtime now essentially demands that you take your eyes off the fight to read tweets. Nurse! Hurry! NURSE!
* Perhaps it’s partly because everything in new Yankee Stadium costs far more than it should, but the overwhelming majority of folks who work in it — wait staff, ushers, vendors, ticket-takers — are remarkably polite, cheerful and helpful. They almost make you forget you’re being mugged.
When SNY’s Mets in-game rover Kevin Burkhardt reports from the railing of an upper deck and speaks of what might be, “going forward,” well …
Now that baseball broadcasters are identifying outfield hits as balls that have “found grass,” reader Bernie Furmanek asks, “Does that mean that a great catch found a glove?”
Knicks, Rangers have extended their agreements to be heard over ESPN Radio-NY.
Judging from Thursday’s Bengals-Falcons telecast, another offseason has passed with no one from Fox prevailing upon Darryl “Moose” Johnston to stop talking — even if just for one play. Fox has allowed Johnston to become steady, empty background noise, like the ice machine next to your hotel room.