“The bells! The bells made me deaf!”
— Quasimodo
HEAR that? It’s not just here. It’s here, there and everywhere. The dictates of modern sports have determined that nothing can be what it is; it must be something else, in addition, something ostensibly designed to please — “market” — kids and/or those stricken with short-attention spans.
Without asking us, sports have decreed that we no longer attend or tune to a game just to watch that game; something has to be thrown in, a distraction to the attraction.
Unless one’s willing to watch Joe Morgan-style — audio on mute — ESPN’s and Spanish-language Univision’s World Cup telecasts have become nearly unendurable, vandalized by the brilliant idea of arming “spectators” with those #%*@&! long horns, creating the insufferable sense that this Cup must be watched with one’s head inside a beehive.
“It’s a terrible sound,” said Ruud Gullit, the retired Dutch superstar serving, and well, as an ESPN analyst. “You don’t hear the crowds; you don’t hear the traditional songs.”
And the sound of 1,000 vuvuzelas being blown in unison is not appreciably lower than 10,000. A fraction of the audience can wreck it for all — for those who bought tickets, those watching on TV, those listening on radio.
FIFA knew what was coming. Cup qualifiers produced the same drone. But for all its blowhards, FIFA did nothing, not even a polite but firm request to check your horn at the door.
These are the sounds of fools kept busy. Ballparks here have eliminated conversation and ambient music, replacing them with “Can’t-hear-you!” rap and heavy metal. New ballparks come loaded with sideshows, from Hooters-like clip joints for young, male adults to “pre-game” during the game, to Wiffle ball cages for kids.
If, when I was a kid, my dad paid $10, $100, or, fat chance, Randy Levine, $1,000 to take me to a game, and I spent even half-an-inning doing something other than watching that game — not that I’d have wanted to, not that there was anything else to do — that would have been the last time.
And if I sat there mindlessly blowing a horn in his ear. . .
Darke day when Brit speaks American
Ian Darke, British play-by-player working the World Cup for ESPN, spoke a grabber, Monday. With Paraguay up, 1-0, he said Italian midfielder Riccardo Montolivio is “another player who hasn’t stepped up to the plate.”
Stepped up the plate? What did Darke mean by that? Was he speaking cricket, a dining expression, or, no way, baseball? Obsessed by a need-to-know basis, I asked Darke after his call of yesterday’s Argentina-South Korea.
“No, I took it from baseball,” he said from Johannesburg.
Really?
“Yes, with all the cross-culture, all the U.S. TV and movies now seen throughout England, ‘Stepping up to the plate,’ is something I know from baseball, nothing to do with my next meal.
“American culture has taken hold. ‘Coffee to go’ — we never said ‘to go,’ now we do. And then there’s ‘Have a nice day.’ We say that, as well.”
Have a nice day? Good grief. They can have that, plus “to go,” and for keeps.
* Does ESPN think there’s someone left to fool? Sunday, with White Sox-Cubs hitless in the fifth, Jon Miller, likely on orders, led Joe Morgan and Orel Hershiser in a strained World Cup (on ESPN!) chat/promo.
* Vince Young is just the latest to learn — perhaps — that unless you’re the milk man, there’s no good reason to be out and about between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.
*Heard/Seen in Bristol: ESPN communications VP Mike Soltys, just returned from the World Cup, walking the halls blowing a vuvuzela just to annoy everyone.
* Juan Samuel, new Orioles’ manager, in the 1980s and ’90s, regularly ran to first only when he felt like it.
Three & clear on ABC
Three-man/woman booths can work if the play-by-player arrives selfless, a pro with a rare blend of modesty and confidence. That’s why Mike Breen, flanked by Mark Jackson and Jeff Van Gundy, made ABC’s NBA Finals telecasts better than logic would allow. By placing himself third, Breen stood out. He was so good the only one who wouldn’t know is Jim Dolan.
* NBC’s U.S. Open coverage, yesterday, was 10-minutes and dated-Tiger-Woods-tape old when it cut to a two-minute, on-camera chat that included a discussion of Lee Westwood’s preparation. Did anyone who’d tuned in at that point prefer to see anything other than live golf? OK, besides Mrs. Westwood. And then NBC returned to milking Woods dry — still, and again.
* Happy 58th Dave Jennings, still never cursing his fate, still not asking — not aloud — “Why me?” as he’s still fighting the good fight against Parkinson’s.
* Now that the future — once self-evident, thus unspoken — is explained as “going forward,” goofy talk breeds goofy talk. After Cameroon’s first-match Cup loss, ESPN’s Mike Tirico said, “Cameroon is going to have a concern, going forward.” Yup, now less likely to advance, Cameroon, going forward, will have difficulty going forward.
* The Pro Basketball Writers’ annual award to the team providing the best media relations is now The Brian McIntyre Award, to honor a fellow who, after more than 30 years as an NBA communications man, remains a pleasure to know and bug, a first-ballot Peoples Hall of Famer.
* Smartly spoken, non self-promotional start to ESPN’s U.S. Open coverage, yesterday, from Chris Berman. Very suspicious.
* Sweet non-move by SNY on Tuesday, allowing Kevin Burkhardt’s in-game chat with Bob Feller to roll behind live Mets-Indians. At 91, Feller’s no different than at 40: Ask him a question and he gives a frank answer, his recall spotless; he always has been fascinating without trying.