Phil Mushnick

Phil Mushnick

Sports

ESPN to call game above Fenway’s Green Monster — but why?

Does anyone recall when silly was silly, when silly wasn’t taken seriously because it was, well, silly?

Now, silly is promoted as new, different. Silly hopefully will be mistaken as good ideas, welcomed change and “thinking outside the box,” whatever that — and “pushing the envelope” — means.

A Silly Symphony, in five movements. Take it, Maestro:

Overture

ESPN’s near-weekly Yankees-Red Sox Late Sunday Night Game is eager for you to know its announcers, Dan Shulman and John Kruk, will call it from above Fenway’s Green Monster.

Why?

Because such innovations, no matter how counter-productive or silly, are deemed innovative, thus easily confused by the easily confused with bold, experimental, “Mr. Watson, come here!” genius.

I’m gonna take a wild guess here to suggest if the vicinity of the Green Monster is the best place from which to call a game — the best spot from which to best serve viewers — that would have been known a long time ago. Fenway, built in 1912, predates TV.

Perhaps it escapes ESPN, but there’s a reason seats just above and behind home plate cost more than those in the bleachers.

Another wild guess: Try as ESPN might, will having Shulman and Kruk call the game from about as far away from the pitcher and catcher as one can be while still inside Fenway, make the difference between you watching and not watching? I’m going with “No.”

Another question: Will Shulman and Kruk’s workplace better provide you a chance to still be awake by, say, the seventh or eighth? Doubtful, but we’ll find out.

Will these distant perspectives help hold the audience if the game’s one-sided? Or will they detract and distract from a good ballgame?

The answer to those questions is ESPN, if it ever considered them, couldn’t care less.

Fans in the Green Monster seats reach for the ball on a home run by the Red Sox.AP

ESPN’s standard regard for the games it televises and the genuine sports fans within its audiences can be scored no higher than my high school algebra final. I scored a “See me.”

If ESPN wanted to add some enhancement by providing visual perspectives from the Green Monster — and you can call me crazy — why not place a TV camera there, as opposed to its broadcast crew?

It’s TV; you don’t have to tell us when you can show us. Besides, most of us have seen that view before.

Why not have ESPN’s guys call a game from a blimp? Perhaps a New Orleans Saints’ home game.

But that’s the difference between silly then, and silly now. Silly used to be accidental; it would cause its purveyors to feel foolish. Now, silly, ridiculous and just plain stupid are a big part of the grand plan.

So don’t miss ESPN on Sunday night, when two East Coast teams play a game West Coasters will have the best shot to watch in its entirety, and when its game announcers will have a better view of the street than the game.

Second Movement

The zesty, playful Allegro: The Big Ten Network last week carried Rutgers’ football coach Kyle Flood’s Big Ten media day news conference, during which he emphasized RU’s entry into the conference was predicated on RU’s and the league’s shared, ongoing and longtime commitment to superior academic standards.

Stop, Coach, you’re killing me!

RU’s opener is at Washington State, 3,000 miles from campus.

Last season, Rutgers opened at Fresno State on a Thursday night, for ESPN money, and later played closer to school, in Dallas, against SMU.

It also played on Thursday nights at Louisville and at Central Florida, both for ESPN money.

Imagine if academics came second!

Third Movement

The Hymnal Chorale: Just because the Bible’s first words reference baseball — “In the big inning” — doesn’t ensure baseball’s preachers know Saint Paul from Minneapolis.

Or as my pal, Charles “Chuckles” Krop, asks, “How can there be a player named Angel Pagan? How can he be both?”

In the first inning on Monday in Texas, YES’ preview box on Yankees starter David Phelps read, “David Has Been Goliath.”

Ken Singleton recited that graphic, then explained that Phelps has pitched well lately.

Not for nothin’ — as it is written — but if the biblical David slew Goliath, why would this David, on a winning streak, be assigned the role of the upset loser, Goliath?

Anyway, Yu Darvish slew the Yankees, the Rangers’ slingshots cast out Phelps into the Land of Nod after six, and Neftali Feliz, not the Lord, got credit for the save.

Our next reading comes from The Book of Selig: “And so the rain delay lasted 40 days and 40 nights…”

Save of the Week, or the contemplative Rondo: Given that all saves are assigned the same cumulative reward, it’s a tossup.

David RobertsonBill Kostroun

The Yankees’ David Robertson on Tuesday allowed two hits, two runs and walked three to “earn” his 27th save.

As reader Bucky Stone notes, Robertson was rewarded the same job-well-done statistic as was the Reds’ Aroldis Chapman, who that same night retired the three men he faced in the ninth.

Again, given that both count as saves — and saves generally are credited for recording between one and three outs without allowing a lead of between one and three runs to be lost, let’s call it a tie.

Also one can enter in the ninth, bases loaded, none out, up one run, then retire the side with only the tying run scoring — and be hit with a blown save!

Such an absurd stat, yet it serves as the no-context measure of success and failure.

The Scherzo or Obligato

The obligatory full-orchestra brass section blowing extra hard, Mike Francesa Finale: Why would Francesa last week invite Giants co-owner John Mara to answer questions when Francesa either interrupted his answers or answered the questions for him?

While Mara began to describe how he felt watching his team last year lose to the Cowboys — I’d have liked to have heard that — Francesa stepped all over him to let Mara/us know what he thought.

Meantime, reader John Cobert of Beatty, Nev., suggests a new vaudeville comedy team, “Francesa & Costello.”

Costello: Hey, Mike, who’s catching for the Mets?

Francesa: Dunno.

C: Could you find out?
F: Find what out?
C: The name of the Mets’ catcher.
F: I know his name.
C: OK, then what is it?
F: Dunno.

Thank you; thank you very much. You’re too kind.

Thank you. Drive home, safely.