WPCNR VIEW FROM THE UPPER DECK. By Bull Allen. July 13, 2007: I watched the All-Star Game on Fox Sports Tuesday night, and it is no wonder baseball ratings are in the dumpster. The producers and sportscasters doing the game are more interested in developing cutaway bits and interviews during the action than covering the action. They are so bored doing a game. A little excitement please? They overlook stories right before their eyes, and in striving to keep fans at home entertained, the “Fox 5” completely blew coverage of the historic Ichiro Suzuki inside-the-park home run. It was reminiscent of the Heidi Game…and never interviewed him afterwards….incredible.
Old Comiskey Park. Site of the first All Star Game in 1933.
With the game tight in the mid-innings, the Ichiro Inside-the-Parker was immediately preceded by Fox Sports version of “Stupid Dog Tricks.”
In the middle of the inning mind you, they were showing viewers a remote on a boat in McCovey Cove beyond the right field fence. So as the world is watching a a very ugly uncute dog swim around in circles in the cove after a ball, missing it like Bobby Abreu —BOOM! The baseball Gods made Fox Producers directors and sportscasters look like fools.
Cut back to the action, and Ichiro’s ball is misplayed by Griffey in right and Ichiro is flying around the bases faster than Maury Wills. Baseball’s most electrifying play — the Inside the Park Home Run.
Does Fox pick it up. They are behind the play.
The camera in rightfield fails to pick up where the ball caroms too! Or the director failed to switch to it. Soooooo…..we do not see what the first baseman is doing on that play. We do not see the reverse angle!!! This is a classic moment in All-Star history and Fox blows it technically because they are covering a swimming dog in a cove instead of focusing on the game. Baseball is a game that is fraught with disaster at any moment. It requires consistent vigilance and concentration more than any other sport.
The technical and producing team not only blew that one – the announcers did, too.
Where was the commentary about “back-up?” No way Ichiro comes all the way around if the first baseman is watching that ball, coming up the right field line to get it. Do Joe Buck, Tim McCarver and the other geniuses pick that up….Noooooo! That was so bad.
The game was peppered with interviews during play, which deflect the fan’s attention from the game. We did not learn a lot about the players except some of their indiosyncratic habits. The clutter of interview bit after hitter slide and profile, detracts from the languid surface tension of “the game.”
Now, this is plate umpire Bruce Froeming’s last year as a Man in Blue. Do we have a clip on Bruce as to how umpiring has changed? (not during the telecast of the game – maybe in the pregame). Do we have clips of Froeming’s famous punch out call. No all they can do is focus in on when Bruce gets hit in the shoulder by a foul tip. That’s brutally missing the story. Froeming has umpired over 5,000 games, right up their with The Old Arbiter, Bill Klem. Could we talk with Mr. Froeming how the strike zone has changed and what Bruce feels it has meant for the game? Of course not. That would be journalism.
Could we ask Barry Bonds if he took steroids and see what his answer is? What he thought of Babe Ruth as a hitter? (Barry was interviewed live, you could have slipped it in.) Where are the Jim Greys with guts today? I guess at the network salary levels no one has any reporter left in him, because the young man who interviewed him probably would have been fired had he asked that question.
Could the pathetic Wally Cox of sportscasters, Joe Buck, stop telling us it is “a good game?”
We know, Joe. We know. Never apologize for baseball. At least we do not have to wait for “plays under reviews” yet.
Fans know a good game, Joe. Television sportscasters, and Buck is one of the worst at this, make a habit of telling us what a great game, great play is. Well fans know. I wish they’d stop doing that – all of you.
Where are the great understatements of yesteryear when something wonderful happens: Joe Buck’s father’s call: “I don’t believe what I just saw!” Mel’s “How about that?” Bob Prince’s “How Sweet it is.”
Dick Enberg’s “Oh, My!” Red’s “Oh, doctor!” Phil’s “Holy Cow!”
Today’s ESPN school of sportscasters have no personalities. That is one think the New York area has are baseball guys and gals behind the mikes. The Mets team is outstanding, but lack the big personality guy…Cohen is close to big personality — but he’s not there yet. John Sterling in the Yankee booth — well he is terrible on radio from a descriptive point but he is a good personality while Suzyn Waldman is excellent in her knowledge of players and situations. Waldman should be allowed to do a little play-by-play…but I digress.
Oh — and could we think perhaps of interviewing The Great Ichiro about the Inside-the-Parker? The Japanese fans watching on the Pacific Rim would have loved that.
Mr. Suzuki holds the record for most hits in a season of all time. (See the WPCNR archives for the story on Mr. Suzuki breaking that record — held previously by Gorgeous George Sisler.
And, by the way, Ichiro does not use steroids.
That was pretty awful programming not putting Mr. Suzuki on — unless I missed it getting a beer from the fridge. If they interviewed Ichiro I apologize…but they should have had him on at the end of the game, too, if they did. But they did not have him on right after he hit it.
The geniuses also did not make a big think of Puholz not being used at the end of the game. I was not even aware of it. In fact, the Fox 5-team did a terrible job of telling us who had not been used in the game.
Hey Fox, you’re missing a good game – every game. Watch one you televise sometime.
Yankees and Red Sox won Thursday night. The Saux lead is still 10 games and 11 in the AILC — (“The All-Important Loss Column”). Mets won too, picking up a half game on the Bravos (2-1/2 games in the AILC)
