Ever consider whether game announcers return home after games to review their recorded work? Given that announcers rarely change their overall approach, most must be well satisfied with their work, right?
In other words, is it possible that Michael Kay enjoys his superfluous verbal presence on Yankees telecasts? Say, the way he adds to moments with “Here’s the 2-2 pitch … fouled back. Count remains 2-2.”
What a perfect time to have remained silent.
Monday, as Cleveland and the Yankees were in extra innings, Kay noted the “Yankees lost an extra innings game Sunday in Williamsport, [Pa.], but are trying to take this one here in The Bronx.”
Who knew?
Then there are Kay’s tired, played out, forced and ill-considered signature phrases, starting with the first pitch — “Let’s do it!” — and extending to “Free baseball!” should the 10th inning arrive.
Does Kay, if and when he reviews his work, gloat that such self-attachments never grow old or that they elevate him from the pedestrian?
Signature calls, such as Marv Albert’s “Yes! And it counts” were cherished because they blended style with substance, thus were meaningful. They held juice, not gas.
Over at Fox, does John Smoltz — now in his 10th year of sedating audiences with his pitch-by-pitch diagnostics, emphasis on spin rates — ever give himself a fair postgame hearing?
After all, Fox’s shot-callers are incapable of distinguishing bad from awful — and no network has shown that it possesses a credible broadcasting coach — thus the John Smoltz Era plods on.
Does NBC’s Cris Collinsworth review recordings to finally recognize that he’s a condescending, “You could see that coming!” know-it-all who never tells us what he saw coming until after it occurred?
Obviously NBC has no idea that Collinswoth is so transparent and has made himself so unpopular that NBC granted him an annual raise from $4 million to $12.5 million, never considering that viewers watch NFL games on NBC in spite of him.
And NBC has allowed his sidekick, Mike Tirico, to become such a grinning, obedient, shallow network shill. For crying out loud, he repeatedly called last season’s money-defeats-fans-again Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game shown exclusively on pay-walled Peacock “an historic telecast” that shouldn’t be missed! — thus earning our continued mistrust.
Do CBS/TNT’s Kevin Harlan and Fox’s Gus Johnson ever review their football and basketball work to conclude what we can’t miss: They’re obviously engaged to scream and holler at everything, anything and absolutely nothing. Not that their bosses would know or care if they became hysterical over nothing, as dim-witted viewers might confuse that with significant action.
It’s a perversion of the Latin ars gratia artis, as televised art is destroyed for the sake of destruction, a form of vandalism.
Or do Fox NFL analysts Greg Olson and — for 23 years! — Daryl “Moose” Johnston wrap up their Sundays by reviewing recordings of themselves twice analyzing the previous play before the next snap while endlessly talking, causing sensory deprivation among viewers until they surrender to the mute button?
Now Fox has former Cardinals pitching standout Adam Wainwright as one of its MLB analysts. I strongly advocated the hiring of Wainwright by any network that covers baseball. He was, as a pro, an engaging, personable, giving and clever speaker of baseball and of life.
But since joining Fox, he has been heard as a pitch-by-pitch near copy of Smoltz, unable to become what he was hired to remain. He, too, could use what doesn’t exist: a good firm, know-the-audience broadcasting coach to convince him to relax and just be himself.
Or, as Winston Churchill said, “It is wonderful how well men can keep secrets they have not been told.”
Skip-less FS1 lineup still easy to skip
The problem with Fox Sports 1’s newly named weekday talk show lineup is that it seems like the previous, easily ignored one, thus there’s little reason to tune in to discover what’s new.
It’s as if the departure of Skip Bayless is a cataclysmic event that needed to be overcome as opposed to easily duplicated. How hard is it to find a host who generates forced, foolish debates and arguments over who will win Sunday’s game or be the starting point guard?
Thus FS1 will simply shuffle its existing deck, add a couple of so-whats and sustain a sports network fully predicated on fooling all of the people all of the time.
Collect ’em all! Trade ’em with your friends! Keyshawn Johnson, Craig Carton, Mark Schlereth, Paul Pierce, LeSean McCoy and rotten guesswork artist and personal history revisionist Colin Cowherd, for starters.
Been there, heard them, moved along.
Reader Bill Guterding senses TV’s and MLB’s further detachment from baseball fans can be found in the form of new-age stats that mirror analytics:
“So now ESPN leads with OPS (calculated as the sum of a player’s on-base percentage and slugging percentage, plus habeas corpus) and not his batting average when a new batter comes up. Most fans I know couldn’t care less about OPS.
“I’m not embarrassed to say I don’t even know what a good OPS is, but I do know that a .300 batting average is pretty darn good.”
‘The Lou’ down on Cardinals jerseys
Many devoted St. Louis Cardinals fans are livid with the new, on-sale-now MLB/ Nike “City Connect” uniforms that identify St. Louis as “The Lou.”
“The Lou” has become a nickname for St. Louis as per the vulgar, N-word enriched, women-degrading, backward-pointed lyrics of St. Louis rapper Nelly, who last week was arrested in a casino for possession of ecstasy pills.
But that’s just fine with MLB and Nike. Heck, Nike is likely thrilled and Team Manfred has blissfully allowed MLB to rot.
That may become Rob Manfred’s lasting legacy. He took and followed Nike’s orders for every nickel they were worth, every wonderful baseball tradition it abandoned.
Does it strike anyone in ESPN’s truck that the one time you may not want to distract LLWS parents with a live interview is when their kid is at bat?
Nah, not ESPN. This is the network that in consecutive years had the coaches of Spanish-speaking LLWS teams miked, but failed to include an interpreter!
If we didn’t know that ESPN hires and fires based on everything except abiltiy and knowledge — politics, religion, race, gender, bogus tweets count most — we’d surmise that football analyst Robert Griffin III was let go because he so clearly wasn’t a good football analyst.
Somewhere Phil Simms is awaiting a call to make NFL telecasts better, the way he did before CBS threw him in the studio to waste his time and ours.
University of Miami tight end Cam McCormick, 26, soon will make history, playing his ninth season of college ball. Reader John Busacca: “Nine years of college? We usually call such people ‘doctors’!”
ESPN’s LLWS coverage Sunday will include a feature showing Disney characters visiting Williamsport, Pa., General Hospital to spend time with 11-year-old LLWS pitchers who have undergone Tommy John surgery.
