Don’t believe your lyin’ eyes. And your ears could be pulling your leg, too.
If this is such a sophisticated sports city, why is so much, from the nonsensical to the impossible, presented to us as significant and/or true?
New Yankee Stadium remains a shrine to unmitigated, on-your-screen/in-your-face greed. And on a 42-degree night, even for a game against the Mets, hideously priced tickets, parking, concessions and everything else in the shopping cart don’t get along well with baseball.
“Guests” — what the Yankees now call paying fans — have become a diminished, repetitive contradiction.
Friday on YES, the usual thousands of empty seats, 10-12 rows deep, behind the plate and up the baselines, were in steady view. Fly balls toward the outfield revealed thousands of more empties in all three decks.
Yankee Stadium seats a little more than 50,000. But at no time did it appear that more than, oh, 35,000, were in the house. And by the eighth, with the Yanks up 6-1 and starter Michael Pineda about to be removed with two out and the Stadium at least half empty, Michael Kay said:
“And we’ll listen to the ovation that Michael Pineda will get from the crowd of 45,310.”
That wasn’t embellishment or even puffery; it was fiction.
Then there’s the vibrant world of statistics-bearing graphics that, apparently by decree, must beat the sense out of every telecast.
Saturday on YES, late in the second quarter of Hawks-Nets, a close game could not compete with a show-and-tell “Key Stats” graphic demanding that we consider “points off turnovers” to that point. Ian Eagle emphasized their importance.
But why are they even relevant, let alone important? Who first deemed such stats noteworthy, let alone a standard now-see/hear this!?
Why are points-off-turnovers more important than points off anything else? What makes them more important than points scored on the next possession after the other team scored?
But it’s too late. Points-off-turnovers will continue to tell a “Key Stats” story, even if they’re the keys to a dark closet.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman last week said something he can’t possibly believe is true. He said Winnipeg Jets fans, exercising their modern sports culture mob mentality and incivility by chanting “Katy,” as in Katy Perry, at Ducks forward Corey Perry, is not a sexist, put-down chant.
It’s not? Of course, it is. Otherwise, those group wise-guy-enriched fans might have chosen to chant, say, “Matthew!” as in the “Friends” star, or “Admiral,” as in Admiral Perry, or “Gaylord,” as in the famous pitcher. Well, maybe not Gaylord.
Not that Bettman was expected to have a solution for such cheap group misogyny, but to tell us such a chant is not sexist is like, well, it’s like Roger Goodell telling us PSLs are good investments. Never mind, scratch that analogy.
Try this one: What Bettman said is like Rob Manfred telling us Fred Wilpon’s a great choice to head MLB’s finance committee. Er, scratch that one, too.
How about this one: It’s like Bud Selig telling Michael Kay he personally checked — all seats in new Yankee Stadium are affordable. Nah, scratch that one, too.
Extra incentive only breeds corruption
Here’s an idea, perhaps: Ban all performance bonuses. Pay the player or coach a salary for doing the best he or she can, and that’s it. Bonuses breed, or at least feed, corruption.
In other words, while the Yankees want to deny Alex Rodriguez a home run totals bonus on the grounds he cheated to get there, college basketball and football coaches are paid millions in bonuses for successes achieved through cheating.
Meanwhile, as the steroid stars — Rodriguez, Mark McGwire, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, et. al. — are too infamous for bonuses and spots in the Hall of Fame, the beneficiaries of their self-evident cheating — managers such as Tony La Russa, Joe Torre and Bobby Cox — are selected to run MLB teams, serve as MLB executives and are inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Week in Purview: Video of the Week: As seen on MSG, Sidney Crosby locked out of the Penguins’ locker room before Rangers-Pens Game 3.
Photo of the Week: Ohio State defensive tackle Michael Bennett giving President Obama the fingers-from-behind bunny ears or devil’s horns. Good for him. Now he can one day show his kids and grandkids that he was — and might still be — a jerk.
Shock of the Week: Although Natalie Gulbis wasn’t known on the LPGA Tour as much for her golf as for her scrimpy outfits and “hot babe” packaging, Fox has hired her to be a golf analyst, anyway.
Score the basketball: Mets’ hitting coach Kevin Long in yesterday’s Post told Joel Sherman that Juan Lagares , “has had some lapses in strike-zone judgment.” Swinging at bad pitches and/or taking good ones? Sure, I guess.
Analysts who hit right note
Analyzing Our Analysts: For those who prefer alert, intelligent commentary to hollering and gimmickry, Jim Spanarkel remains first-rate.
During YES’ Hawks-Nets Game 3, Spanarkel stated that while Brook Lopez may be a 7-footer, the Hawks aren’t paying enough attention to him on the inside. For those who then kept an eye on Lopez, moments later they saw Lopez, alone inside, take a pass, score an easy two.
As long as vinyl and turntables are making a comeback, Ron Darling’s in. During SNY’s Braves-Mets broadcast on Thursday, a shot appeared of in-uniform but broken-fingered catcher Travis d’Arnaud.
Darling said he admires how d’Arnaud has been there to support call-up catcher Kevin Plawecki, “But he’ll have that sinking feeling at some point, sitting in a dark room and listening to ‘The End’ by the Doors.” Heavy.
YES’ Al Leiter on Friday during Mets-Yanks, demonstrated his previously unknown capacity to allow a pitch, now and then, to be thrown without comment, without his standard, protracted clinical examination. Good for him, good for us.
Readers have asked about the incongruity of ESPN saluting Little League teams during Sunday MLB telecasts that begin at 8:05 p.m. on school/work nights. To be fair, ESPN is only inviting teams that work the graveyard shift.
Not sure if it’s true, but I was told during Saturday’s Mets-Yanks, John Sterling said if the teams keep swinging at the first pitch he won’t be able to get in all the commercial spots. If so, his best line as the Voice of the Yankees!
Lookalikes: Peter Tholke submits MSG analyst Mike Bossy and the late Ted Cassidy, Lurch on “The Addams Family.” … Capitals coach Barry Trotz and Vladimir Lenin.