Need a good laugh? Check this out:
MLB Network sent a media release pitching the debut of a new show, “Off Base.” Quoting from the statement, it promises “a passion for baseball that will be infectious to the next generation of baseball fans.”
Good one, eh? MLB, stuck in reverse and denial, can’t sustain “the passion for baseball” among this generation of fans.
Also this week, in another release, MLB Network heralded another new show, “Pregame Spread,” emphasizing gambling on baseball. That’s more like it!
MLB’s only conspicuous devotion is to destroy The Game and sucker its remaining fans until the national pastime is R.I.P. — Rests In Pieces.
Friday, the first Friday of the season, four cities, representing three of the nation’s top four population centers — in order, New York, Los Angeles and Houston — will have a local team’s game removed from greatest view for MLB to service its new deal with a nascent, subscription streaming service, Apple TV+.
Mets-Nationals then Astros-Angels will not appear on TV, as they were auctioned off by Rob Manfred and his merry band of infectious baseball devotees. Friday’s betrayal is the start of what has been branded “Friday Night Baseball,” MLB’s logo decorating the signage like sucker-reliant gambling operations trading on MLB’s official stamp of approval.
It’s impossible to fathom such decisions. Adding to the self-imposed calamity, Friday’s streamed games are scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. and 9:30, as if MLB games are now normally played in 2 ¹/₂ hours — a rarity unless one of those Rob Manfred seven-inning doubleheaders — when 3 ¹/₂ has become common.
Understand that live sports streaming, at any price and explained by any bogus “can’t stand in the way of progress” rationalization, is not yet perfected or reliable enough to ensure fans don’t have to navigate the maze of streaming apps to land on the right plan.
Thus, MLB has taken the dough to be a lab rat, while its shrinking fan base becomes rat feed.
And at least 21 Yankees games, this season — 19 of them on Friday nights — have been sold from view to Amazon Prime Video!
Did no one learn from boxing, whose promoters virtually killed both the sport and their own long-term best interests by selling even moderately attractive bouts to pay per view? Why would Manfred, other than money, make it easier for remaining baseball fans to be abused?
So many fans are weary of watching multimillionaires strike out while trying to hit into the shift, 17 pitching changes per game and batters posing doubles and triples into singles that perhaps Manfred is simply conducting an “Everything Must Go!” sale.
Consider: MLB and the Yanks didn’t even have the decency to sell Apple and Amazon a Tuesday package as per a school/work night. They’re mostly Friday night deals, as if it were a slow night.
Yep, “infectious to the next generation of fans.” Tennis, anyone?
Whatever you do, golf media, don’t ruffle Tiger!
I suspect that during the Masters, goofy TV golf parlance — mindless clichés — will be spoken to describe Tiger Woods’ serious, one-man “accident” as simply a case of his car “finding a roadside ditch” the way golf balls “find” green-side ponds.
OK, so what if Woods is in the habit of passing out while driving, once loaded on opioids, the next escaping all standard unconscious car wreck examinations by friendly law enforcement after he wrecked at nearly twice the speed limit.
And so what if his “special doctor,” Anthony Galea, often flown — a reported 14 times — to Woods’ Florida home from Toronto, lost his license after pleading guilty to a pile of charges, including drug smuggling and transporting and distributing “mislabeled drugs.”
Still, media, especially those who know better, continue to portray Woods as the finest human to have ever breathed in and then out — no tough questions allowed; Tiger doesn’t like that — so why bother with the small stuff? As John Sterling said of Alex Rodriguez, another of Galea’s patients, “It’s not like he killed anyone.”
Thursday Woods was indisputably extraordinary. But why can’t he be just a great golfer, perhaps the greatest, significant and nearly fatal and flaws included? The media won’t allow it. And it’s nauseating.
Also Thursday, with Woods three off the lead at the time, ESPN/CBS abandoned live coverage of the Masters — the other bests in the world playing in a major — for a long, taped recap of Woods’ round.
By now, Sean McDonough, not dialect-chameleon and rotten guesswork artist Stephen A. Smith, should be its most valued presence. Saturday, McDonough called ABC/ESPN’s Penguins-Avalanche telecast. Smooth, prepared, alert, balanced, candid, no forced gimmicks or screaming. As usual, he treated viewers as intelligent.
He even had the good sense to ignore a graphic giving NHL DraftKings odds.
McDonough, by now, should have been ESPN’s longtime “Sunday Night Baseball” play-by-play man. He’s superb calling baseball.
And/or he should, by now, be ESPN’s longtime “Monday Night Football” lead. But ESPN demoted him because he had the misfortune of being stuck with Jon Gruden, who didn’t know or seem to care what was going on, often ignoring McDonough’s prompts to wake up.
ESPN replaced McDonough with Joe Tessitore, then Steve Levy and now, for a reported ballpark figure of $70 million, Joe Buck. But ESPN is always the last to know.
Youngsters shouldn’t listen to CC
By now you’d think that someone at MLB knows CC Sabathia doesn’t possess the class or awareness not to spew sewer vulgarities most every time he speaks in public — from podcasts to “social” media and elsewhere. This week Rob Manfred named Sabathia a “special assistant” assigned to “diversity and youth participation.”
Odd, while virtually eliminating early Saturday afternoon games, Manfred has claimed that bat-flipping and other acts of excessive immodesty will attract kids to baseball. He and Roger Goodell should conduct a seminar on how pandering solves problems.
I know a fellow who watched the last half-hour of Monday’s NCAA Championship while dressing for work Tuesday morning.
Had Monday’s final tipped at, say, 8:21 instead of 9:21, the chance of anyone on either coast missing the second half would have been greatly diminished.
But the NCAA is another that trades the greater good for TV money, thus the second half, for more than half the country’s population, began at 10:40. The game ended at 11:42. Crazy.
Every year we ask why MLB can’t begin the season with teams playing their first two series in warm-weather cities or under domed stadia as a matter of common sense, including fan comfort and minimizing winter weather postponements. Yup, every year.
By performing an obscene crotch dance during Sunday’s Grammys, rapper Lil Nas X perhaps was hoping to catch Goodell’s attention to perform during the next Super Bowl.
Yes, that’s former ESPN studio regular Kenny Mayne in commercials encouraging viewers to lose their money betting with Caesars Sports Book. He joins another ex-ESPN regular, Trey Wingo, in attracting losers for Caesars.
Gonna be weird to start a season without Aaron Boone and the Yanks’ TV and radio voices not claiming how Gary Sanchez has worked so hard to improve.
Herb Turetzky — the Nets’ first and, until October, only courtside scorekeeper — died Monday at 76. To grasp Turetzky’s presence, consider that few NBA players, refs, administrators, scouts and media would dare start work without checking in with Herb. It was both their ritual obligation and pleasure.
