Sports

Announcers fail to realize each play changes everything to come

Nurse!

It’s 1-0, Texas, Friday night, top fifth, Alex Rodriguez on third, one out — the biggest moment of the game to that point — when TBS cut to its Charles Schwab “Time to Talk” insert, a taped chat with Ron Washington. Noooo!

The terribly timed chat ended just as Nick Swisher was hit by the pitch — a play the plate ump judged a wild pitch, thus Rodriguez scored, when it should have been first and third.

Next, Swisher tapped out in front of the plate. And Ron Darling told us that Rodriguez wouldn’t have scored on that play; there would have been two outs with Texas still up, 1-0.

Noooo! Everything changed after that WP/HBP! For starters, with Rodriguez on third, Colby Lewis pitched from the stretch. With none on, Lewis resumed pitching to Swisher from a full windup. Either way, Swisher was going to hit that tapper?

For the last, oh, dozen years, baseball broadcasters repeatedly have told us what they claim managers and players tell them: “The only thing batters ask of the plate ump is consistency,” i.e., if they give the low strike or the high strike, or the inside strike, whatever, “just as long as they’re consistent.”

And that sounds right enough to believe, right? But now it’s October; computerized Pitch Trax boxes show up on the screen, thus that umpire consistency axiom is forgotten faster than algebra.

First inning, Game 2 of the NLCS; Jimmy Rollins
walks on a close pitch, low and inside. Fox’s gizmo shows the pitch to have hit the lowest inside border of that box.

Tim McCarver
questions Dan Iassogna
‘s call; Joe Buck
sees McCarver and raises him. “That pitch was right there,” Buck declares.

Right where
? On the outer edge of that computer box?

Stop, you’re killing me. First inning and all those lectures about umpire consistency vanish, lost to a video game!

Choosing between the radio calls of John Sterling
(WCBS) and Joe Morgan
(ESPN) during the ALCS was like choosing between cyanide and arsenic, or Iraq and Iran, or null and void.

In just two weeks, TBS’s John Smoltz
grew on us, didn’t he? He’s kindly Mr. Smoltz, modest but eager to inform. And, with Darling more inclined toward objectivity than when in the Mets’ booth, Darling and Smoltz mostly were strong — not smothering the telecasts, hints without lectures, good humor without forced laughter.

ESPN running an en-title-ment program

The titles they’re handing out up at ESPN are starting to sound like those Dorothy bestowed on her pals in “The Wizard of Oz.”

Chris Mortensen
, for example, now appears as ESPN’s Senior NFL Insider. Adam Schefter
is listed as an ESPN NFL Insider. Is there an ESPN Junior NFL Insider? A Junior Senior NFL Insider?

Throughout sports media, “Insider” has become a position, a title. I guess one starts as an Outsider, is promoted to Middle-Insider, then Junior Senior Insider, Junior Seau, Senior Insider, and finally, Senior Insider, Emeritus.

Postseason lookalikes: Readers have submitted Josh Hamilton
and Will Ferrell
, Hamilton and M*A*S*H actor Wayne Rogers
, Hamilton and chef Bobby Flay
.

It’s time NCAA D-I basketball changed its title to more accurately reflect what it has become: The AAU Nike/Reebok/Adidas Winter League.

So a receiver turns to catch a pass and a linebacker or defensive back blasts him high, leading with his head, forearms or all three. Yet there are people — players, coaches, fans, talk-show hosts, video-game makers, network promo producers, TV analysts — who insist that “This is the way football is played. It can’t be helped.” They confuse blindside assaults with tackling.

Ryan Ruocco
, another Fordham University Radio Prep School grad, and Robin Lundberg
, a former Max Kellerman
worker bee and an ESPN 1050 multi-tasker since 2006, will give 1050’s

10 a.m-to-11 a.m. weekday hour a shot, starting tomorrow.

This Gus stops here

GUS Johnson
, it’s clear, badly overplayed his hand with MSG Network.

In the end, he wanted to be paid as a Knicks’ fulltime radio and TV man while working part time, losing games and attention to dubious TV endeavors such as Ultimate Fighting holler sessions and some nonsense called “Slamball,” as well as CBS college hoops.

Even after 12 “full” seasons calling the Knicks, Johnson didn’t have that kind of clout within MSG. Yet, over the last few NBA seasons, he seemed to regard himself as indispensable.

ESPN last week noted that the first “walk-off” win in Giants’ postseason history came on a swing by Fred Merkle
in the 1911 World Series (he hit a sac fly). A.J. Burnett
then hit Merkle with a shaving cream pie.

As long as Cablevision’s playing the poor-us card, it continues to advertise that, unlike Verizon’s FiOS, it shows all the local pro teams in HD. Omitted from those ads is that Cablevision refuses to provide FiOS — a competitor — with MSG’s programming in HD. Another anti-competitive self-service from our good friends at Dolanvision!

Readers ask . . .

Bobby Da Hat Man
asks why football announcers claim that a receiver “juggled the ball”?

That, writes Da Hat, is impossible. “A receiver cannot juggle a football. Maybe he can juggle three, but not one.”

Mike Logerfo
, Saddle Brook, N.J., asks: “Can you challenge whether a coach threw a replay challenge flag before the next snap?”

Come on, Mike, that’s an easy one. Rule 242, Subset 6, Section C, Paragraph 14 (e).

That’s why coaches have two replay challenge flags, the red one for the first replay challenge, the madras one to challenge if the replay rule, after further review, should rule whether the replay rule challenge, after further review, should be challenged, after further review.

Finally, Bob St. John
, North Haven, Conn., asks, “Where does God point when he hits a home run?”