HEARING KAY-ED: Michael Kay amazingly thought Fenway Park denizens were taunting the Yankees’ Alex Rodriguez (above) with chants of “Derek Jeter!” They were saying, “You’re a cheater!” (
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Daffy Duck Dynasty.
When I was a little kid, Saturday mornings meant watching — “turning on” — cartoon shows. Local over-the-air TV stations — that’s all there were — were loaded with them. Today, they’ve been replaced by infomercials pitching cure-all, fix-all products less plausible than bears attaching napkins to their collars before eating from pic-a-nic baskets and pigs wearing hunting gear to stalk rabbits.
Anyway, these cartoons often featured a street-corner bum, having watched something incredible fly past, reach into his jacket pocket, pull out a bottle, take one last, adoring look at it, then toss it in a trash can.
I didn’t quite get it then. I do now.
Friday night during Yankees-Red Sox on Channel 9, Alex Rodriguez came to bat in the first. The fans in Fenway Park booed. And booed. A chant could barely be heard above those boos.
Michael Kay, a master of bad guesses he reports as factual, explained: The Boston crowd is “now trying to rub salt in the wounds, some of the Fenway faithful chanting ‘Derek Jeter.’ ”
What? What!
Why in the name of the human condition would Red Sox fans choose to mock Alex Rodriguez by chanting a salute to Derek Jeter? Kay’s on-the-scene, right-on-top-of-things sense of the moment was preposterous.
“No,” said Ken Singleton, “it’s ‘You’re a cheater.’ ” He added “Derek’s not here” — not that there was any way that Kay would have heard such a chant had Jeter been there!
That Kay would think he heard such a chant, let alone report it as a fact, was staggering. As if Yankee fans would trash a Red Sox player by chanting, “Dustin Pedroia!”
The next day from Fenway, on Fox, Alfonso Soriano was doubled up, caught off second on Curtis Granderson’s none-out fly to short center with runners on first and second. Killer play.
Tim McCarver explained: “That’s a bad base-running play by a good baserunner.”
What? What!
Soriano has been a dreadful baserunner from the moment he broke in as a Yankee regular, in 2001.
He’s more a career base-jogger and home plate-poser than a “baserunner,” his failure to run noted by his first big league manager, Joe Torre, along with everyone else. It was — and remains — inescapable that Soriano was/is habitually one base short of where he belonged/belongs, including first base.
Yet, McCarver told a national audience Soriano’s normally “a good base-runner”! That’s like telling us Shaquille O’Neal is normally a good free-throw shooter.
In Robinson Cano’s four at-bats, Saturday, he barely jogged toward first as he was being thrown out. Four times he put the ball in play, not once did he bother to run!
Yet, McCarver, who knows good baserunners — such as Soriano — from bad ones, never said a word about what was impossible to miss, even once!
Oh, well. On Tuesday night, Cardinals outfielder Matt Holliday sprained an ankle in a game against the Pirates.
On Wednesday, ESPN’s “Bottom Line” horizontal scroll repeatedly reported Holliday was “day-to-day (ankle).”
That night, during ESPN’s telecast of Pirates-Cards, the nation’s all-sports network’s latest-news and self-promotion scroll continued to report Holliday was “day-to-day” with that ankle — even while above this info, Holliday was seen, live, batting and playing left field.
And that’s why, or so I figure, cartoon drunks gave their pints of Old Laughing Lady one last, fond look before casting them into garbage cans.
Sensible play-caller McDonough buried on ESPN depth chart
In Sean McDonough, ESPN has one of TV’s most credible college football play-by-players. He’s prepared, alert, clever and honest. McDonough is not likely to classify arrests of players as “distractions” nor indulge college coaches who like to keep throwing with 40-point leads.
Thus it stands to reason McDonough is listed fifth on ESPN/ABC’s college football depth chart. Career shill Brent Musburger, again, is listed No. 1.
* John Sterling is so self-afflicted by his self-promotional calls that pertinent, immediate game info can’t compete.
Monday, after David Robertson ended a 2-1 game by striking out the Angels’ Chris Nelson on a full count with the bases loaded, Sterling went into his tired, extra-long “Thaaaaaa Yankees win!” bit — then added that Nelson swung at ball four. Oh.
Nothing new. In 1996, Sterling made with his they’re-all-the-same “Thaaaa Yankees win!” thing, before mentioning Dwight Gooden had just pitched a no-hitter. What a pro.
* The latest inevitable drug scandals on Bud Selig’s watch have obscured an astonishing season’s reality: Four teams widely expected to be first-place-caliber — the Angels, Nationals, Blue Jays and Giants — are a combined 63 1/2 games out of first, all below .500.
* Analysis of the Week, from Golf Channel’s Curt Byrum: “The greens are going to be the difference with who wins and who loses the Solheim Cup.” The U.S. and European teams putt on different greens? Why not just say that the greens are fast, tricky? When is putting not a big factor in championship golf?
* How long before the Little League World Series begins at night for ESPN/ABC money?
ESPN shamelessly continues to exploit 12-year-olds for self-promotion. Yesterday a graphic on ABC noted a Little League World Series player “wants to become a ‘SportsCenter’ anchor.” And if he wanted to work for CBS? “Wrong answer, kid. Next! What’s your favorite Disney movie?”
* Mets radio’s Josh Lewin on Saturday from San Diego explained that because the Mets don’t use lower case letters for the names on the backs of uniforms, the lowercase first ‘D’ in rookie catcher Travis d’Arnaud was handled by flipping an uppercase ‘P.’
* ESPN yesterday reported Dolphins tight end Dustin Keller, the ex-Jet, is out for the season with knee injuries, “according to ESPN and other media outlets.”
In other words, the media were informed as one, but ESPN gave itself credit, anyway.
* Give the United States team credit. It may have been smoked in this weekend’s Solheim Cup, but we kicked the European team’s fannies in fist-pumping! Heck, Charlie Hull, the Englishwoman — er, 17-year-old kid — who yesterday beat star Paul Creamer, 5-and-4, then asked for her autograph, was so focused on golf she completely forgot to display a silly attitude, at all! For shame!