Baseball-Related Program Activities

If the World Series had been Dodgers-Red Sox instead of Phillies-Rays, Fox's TV coverage would have gone something like this...

Joe Buck: Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny?

Tim McCarver: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny, Manny Manny Manny Manny.

Joe: Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny -- Chris Myers?

Chris Myers: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny. Manny Manny Manny, Joe.

Joe: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny -- there's a grand slam by Rafael Furcal -- Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny.

Tim: Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny Manny (continues until end of inning)

By the way, don't let anyone claim that the Rays are a "small-market" team -- Tampa-St. Petersburg is the 13th-largest media market in the U.S. (link is to a Nielsen PDF). Larger than Seattle-Tacoma (#14), larger than Minneapolis-St. Paul (#15), larger than Miami-Ft. Lauderdale (#16).

Labels: dodgers, joe buck, Manny Ramirez, red sox, tim mccarver

One problem with starting the World Series on a Wednesday is that I don't go straight home from work on Wednesdays; I volunteer at Reading for the Blind and Dyslexic, recording textbooks. Now, I don't have a problem watching baseball on TiVo delay, but the big problem here was that I had to make my baseball chili ahead of time (which I did on Wednesday).

Anyway, as I was leaving the RFB&D studio at 7:00 tonight, I heard a loud voice coming from across the parking lot. My first thought was, "Wow, someone's really talking loud on their cell phone." Then I heard a different loud voice, and thought, "Wow, why are those two people talking so loud to each other?" And then I realized what the voices were, and realized that someone was sitting in their car with the windows down listening to the World Series on the radio. I hummed loudly as I walked to my car because I didn't want to hear Jon Miller give the score. (Fortunately, all I really heard from him was the phrase "It's a change-up.")

Not that hearing the score at that point would have mattered much.

Since I did end up watching it on TV, I can report that in the bottom of the 3rd, Joe Buck referred to Chris Myers as "our little jub-jub." This is because, when Joe Buck was on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" last week, Conan offered $1,000 for his favorite charity if he'd work "jub-jub" somewhere into the game broadcast, "jub-jub" being something that Conan would blurt at random moments in the "Simpsons" writers' room.

Labels: chris myers, conan o'brien, joe buck, jub-jub, world series

Via Sports By Brooks: get ready for the late-night comedy of Joe Buck.

Labels: joe buck

Despite Joe Buck assuring us repeatedly that it was "the most anticipated new game show of the year," Fox's "The Rich List" has been canceled after one episode aired. Thus, it now joins Jackie Gleason's "You're in the Picture" as a game show canceled after one episode; and, more on-topic here, it joins "South of Sunset" as a series canceled after one episode due to low ratings despite heavy promotion during the World Series.

Also, Fox Sports president Ed Goren has written a letter to the L.A. Times defending Tim McCarver ("He is the best 'first-guesser' in the business").

Labels: joe buck, los angeles times, tim mccarver, tv

Lou Piniella is going to be a color commentator on Fox, paired with Thom Brennaman, at least for a month and a half. If I recall correctly, he had some pretty good insights during that one game during last year's playoffs where he was the third man in the booth -- when he could get a word in edgewise between Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, of course.

Labels: devil rays, joe buck, lou piniella, thom brennaman, tim mccarver, tv

In the ninth innning of Sunday's Sox win, Scott Podsednik at the plate, Joe Buck says to Tim McCarver, "You know, Tim, a lot of people thought Garner should have put Lidge into game six of the NLCS, just to get the taste of that Pujols home run out of his mouth. What do you think?"

"Well, Joe, I don't think that taste is there."

But right around the time McCarver said "taste," the ballgame was ending as Podsednik's homer cleared the right field wall.

Maybe that taste is there after all? Tastes a bit coppery, like blood.

Labels: Albert Pujols, brad lidge, joe buck, scott podsednik, tim mccarver, world series

• Hope you enjoy watching A.J. Pierzynski running to first base while Josh Paul rolls the ball back toward the pitcher's mound, because Fox is going to be showing it over and over and over and over and over and over and over, and that's just during Game 3. (On the bright side, it's not often that the Los Angeles Times has a box on its front page containing excerpts from the MLB official rules, as it does today.)
  
• Lou Piniella has been fairly entertaining, and has had some good insights, drawing not only from his many years in baseball, but the fact that he was managing an American League team this season, a team that had to play against the Angels and White Sox on occasion. So it's too bad he's having to share a booth with Tim McCarver.
  
• Talking about Mark Buehrle and the urgency with which he pitches, Joe Buck joked with Lou about the fact that some of the organizations he's managed for would probably hate Buehrle because you don't sell as many concessions when the games only last an hour and 40 minutes. I was hoping Lou would say, "Or sell as much furniture," but no such luck. Maybe just in case, he's making nice with new Devil Rays principal owner Stuart Sternberg (whose attempt to get people to show up at Tropicana Field next year should not go unmentioned here).
  
• Scooter explained what a change-up is 45 minutes into the broadcast (note that I did not say "45 minutes into the game"). At 8:45 P.M. Eastern, all the kids who are young enough to need Scooter to explain a change-up to them are in bed already, not that anyone in the Eastern time zone is watching any of the championship series games. At 7:45 P.M. Central -- well, all the kids in the Central time zone are the children of knowledgable baseball fans of the type who go to Cardinals games and who used to go to Cubs games until the frat boys started crowding them out, so they don't need Scooter to tell them what a change-up is. At 6:45 P.M. Mountain -- well, no one lives in the Mountain time zone, especially during the daylight saving time months when Arizona is effectively on Pacific time. At 5:45 P.M. Pacific, there are no kids watching baseball because their parents are still stuck in traffic on the way home from work and the kids are watching soft-core porn via Cinemax On Demand because they've figured out how to defeat the "parental lock" on their cable box. At 4:45 P.M. Alaska time, kids are too busy drilling for oil or clubbing baby seals or whatever it is they do all day in Alaska. At 2:45 P.M. Hawaii time, kids are still in school, or cutting class to go surf, not cutting class to watch baseball. Therefore, Scooter is completely superfluous and should be destroyed.
  

Labels: a.j. pierzynski, joe buck, josh paul, los angeles times, lou piniella, mark buehrle, Scooter, stuart sternberg, tim mccarver, tv

My thoughts about the All-Star Game, and Fox's coverage thereof...

• Perhaps you should not, during your pregame show that is tightly timed and controlled to the second, go live on the air and ask Ernie Harwell a question about Al Kaline, because he will of course give a long-winded answer, thus causing Jeanne Zelasko to have to cut him off and look like a jerk doing it. (I almost wrote "big jerk," but I don't want some pro-pregnancy group complaining about my choice of words to describe a woman who is, uh, with child.)
  
  
• British national anthem? I know "My Country 'Tis of Thee" when I hear it! The amount of patriotic songs played before and during baseball games is growing out of control.
  
  
• Hey, I thought Scooter was dead! Too bad every kid who cares already knows what a change-up is because they're faithfully rendered in video games these days, probably with better camera angles than Fox has available.
  
  
• Hey, it's the descendant of the glowing blue hockey puck, this time showing the path of the ball to the plate.
  
  
• For a second, I thought they said Jim Bouton was the general manager of the Nationals, but it's actually someone named Jim Bowden. Too bad; Jim Bouton might reach Ed Hart-ian levels of general manager-ness.
  
  
• I should have realized the game was going to be sponsored by Chevrolet and gotten an apple Home Run Pie at the supermarket on Sunday, but no, all I had was lemon. It was slightly better than the vanilla pie I ate Sunday, but not much. I think I'm going to stick to Hostess fruit pies for my future fruit pie needs; they also do a good job of distracting comic-book villains, as I understand it.
  
  
• Joe Buck: You can tell a lot about Dontrelle Willis by the way he wears his hat.
  Me (singing): The way he wears his hat, the way he sings off-key...
  Tim McCarver (starts babbling about how if Gershwin were alive today, he might have written that song about Dontrelle Willis)
  
  Oh, my God, I'm starting to think like Tim McCarver -- well, sort of, since I had the sense to just start singing the damn song, instead of talking incoherently about it.
  
  
• Those red-white-and-blue bases that were used at Tiger Stadium for the 1971 All-Star Game look pretty cool and retro, like ABA basketballs. All we get in the 21st century is "Spider-Man" advertising.
  
  
• Doesn't Fox realize "Bad News Bears" is not a 20th Century Fox movie? I guess they'll take anyone's money. And I guess no actual Fox stars wanted to go to Detroit, just noted crazy person Billy Bob Thornton.
  
  
• No Danys Baez in the game? Poor Devil Rays. Guess I'll have to take advantage of DirecTV's post-All-Star-Game preview of MLB Extra Innings to watch, say, the Devil Rays-Blue Jays game on Friday. The TiVo is already set.
  
  
• Is the National League ever going to win the All-Star Game again? I know, one might have expressed similar sentiments about the American League in, say, 1981.
  
  

Labels: al kaline, all-star game, bad news bears, danys baez, ernie harwell, jeanne zelasko, joe buck, Scooter, tim mccarver, tv

A thought on Saturday night's Dodgers-Cardinals game: since Joe Buck was off for his NFL football broadcasting duties, wouldn't it have been great if Fox had told Tim McCarver to stay in St. Louis and instead had the game called by a certain Los Angeles-based announcer who's been around since the last Ice Age and has more broadcasting talent in his little finger than Tim McCarver has in all the shoe-polished strands of his hair combined?

No such luck, and even if I had been watching live instead of TiVo-delayed, I couldn't have listened to him on the radio because of the delay inherent in DirecTV. Eventually, I put the TV on mute and listened to Brian Wilson's "Smile" on my iPod instead.

Original comments...

Toby: Levi, Did you happen to catch Fox Sports' "Beyond the Glory" special on Kirk Gibson's WS Game 1 HR in 1988? It was narrated by Joe Buck. ...Was a great piece.

The thing that struck me, though, was that they played Vin Scully's call of the homer first, then used Jack Buck's a little later. I had never heard anything but Jack Buck's call of that homer. It was very interesting.

You're so right about Vin Scully and McCarver, though. Why does he seem to worry so much about how deep the outfielders are playing?

Toby: Whoops - Just noticed that Jim posted that. Regardless, my comments wouldn't change--just direct it at Jim, instead of Levi.

Jim: They did an entire "Beyond the Glory" on Kirk Gibson's home run? Wow. I've closed-captioned a couple of those, and they're pretty good, but I've never watched one at home.

In the video of the home run, you can see one car in the parking lot beyond center field leaving early. Its taillights suddenly come on just as the ball leaves the stadium, and it apparently syncs up perfectly with Vin Scully's call, as if the occupant of the car was listening to the game on the radio and reacted to the home run by slamming on the brakes.

By the way, it turns out that if you actually go to a Division Series game at Dodger Stadium, not only do you not have to listen to Tim McCarver on your TV, you get to listen to Vin Scully's calls of memorable moments from the past season. His call of Steve Finley's grand slam to clinch the division was something like:

"Wherever it comes down, the Dodgers are division champs." (35 seconds of crowd noise)

Can you imagine Tim McCarver being quiet for 35 consecutive seconds?

Toby: NO! He'd be talking about how one of the fans in the seventh row was playing too deep to catch the home run ball.

maura: chris berman was silent after vladdy's grand slam the other night. as was ALL OF FENWAY. it was totally creepy and everyone at work was just looking at each other all alarmed-like.

thatbob: fucking yanx

Labels: Cardinals, dodgers, joe buck, music, tim mccarver, tv, vin scully

I'm still busy busy busy at work, but I couldn't let the first games pass with no comment, so here's a quick post with no links, mainly designed to get other people's impressions of yesterday's games.

1) I know one game does not a series make, but I very much enjoyed the dazed look that Odalis Perez wore when he left the mound in yesterday's Cards/Dodgers game. The last time a team hit five home runs in a game in a division series--wait--no team had ever done that before. It was a good start.

2) I was a bit bothered by the curtain calls at Busch Stadium yesterday, though. Curtain calls seem to me to be a bit disrespectful. I know players feel like the crowd is compelling them to come out, and they have to do it to shut up the crowd, but like a band after playing a perfunctory encore, they should just ignore the noise. Eventually it'll go away. No matter how hard I stomped my feet at his show, Nick Lowe wasn't going to come back out and play "I've Been Everywhere."

3) The Red Sox did as expected. I expect they'll do more of the same in games 2 and 3. And Johnny Damon's hair seems to be even longer than before: it's down past his shoulders.

4) I finally saw Scooter the Talking Baseball last night. Acting as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world, Joe Buck said, "And now, to tell us some more about the change-up, here's Scooter." And there he was, unsettlingly flesh-colored, with a weird stitching mouth and backwards ball cap. Until that moment, I was still trying to make myself believe that he was a figment of Jim's imagination. But no: Fox really does think kids are this stupid.

5) After the umpires took back the Sierra home run last night, deciding that it was foul after all, I decided that the only thing better than a Yankee making an out is a Yankee thinking he's hit a home run, then making an out. I decided that every time a Yankee hits a foul ball--even just a grounder--the umpires should wave their fingers for a home run, make the hitter run the bases, then confer and send him back to the plate. Now that would be fun.

Original comments...

Levi: Oh, and how could I have forgotten the way the radar gun reading bursts into flames any time a pitch gets above about 92 mph? What a wealth of new excitement that brought to my enjoyment of the game! Thank you, Fox! Thank you!

maura: that near-hr was ruben sierra's, actually. he promptly struck out.

Levi: Thanks, Mo. I fixed it.

Jason: When is Fox going to bring out the blue dot to follow where the ball goes? And when will we see Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?!?!?

stacey: i was DEEPLY disappointed that sierra was not required to run the bases in reverse.

Labels: Cardinals, dodgers, joe buck, johnny damon, odalis perez, red sox, ruben sierra, Scooter

1. That was interesting having the starters enter from the stands, but instead of having them lined up in the aisle, they should all have been sitting in various places around the lower deck, and would have acted surprised when they heard their names called...you know, having to put down their hot dogs, maybe borrowing a glove from the kid next to them, whatever.

2. I am amazed to find out that there are teams in the National League other than the Cubs and the Barry Bondses. I have also heard rumors that there are teams in the American League other than the Yankees and Red Sox, but saw no solid evidence during the game broadcast to back up the gossip.

3. I know Suzuki is a very common last name in Japan, but why does Ichiro Suzuki get to rise to the level of Cher, or Pelé, and get only his first name listed in Fox's on-screen graphics?

4. Seriously, Joe Buck is almost completely insane, and I'm certain that it's all Tim McCarver's fault. They need to be separated immediately before there's an ugly incident in the press box, and by that I mean Joe Buck should stay where he is and Tim McCarver should be dropped on an iceberg somewhere in the Arctic.

5. Hey, Fox spent some money to upgrade Scooter's animation since I last saw him! Great; that's money that could have been spent to teach illiterate kids to read, or to increase the salary of a certain "Malcolm in the Middle" writer.

Original comments...

Toby: I couldn't agree more about dropping McCarver!! And that's a great idea about introducing the starters (kind of like a "Price is Right" intro).

Does anyone else remember when Vida Blue played and he had just "Vida" on the back of his uniform?

Levi: I've always liked Ichiro!'s first-name-uniform thing in part because of Vida Blue, who was before my time as a fan, but whom I've seen in photos.

And I agree wholeheartedly with Jim and Toby about McCarver. I used to like Joe Buck when he was just a kid doing Cardinals broadcasts. He was modest and straightforward and obviously had grown up listening to his dad and Moon Man Shannon. But a few years with McCarver and he's completely around the bend.

And that was yesterday's bad news: in the midst of all the good news about how baseball is doing well and ratings are up, Fox has said they may be interested in extending their contract. Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Steve: 1) How about Piazza getting his revenge by tipping pitches? "Hey Manny, here comes the fastball."

2) I watched the game with the sound off mostly but it was quite awkward to see them give Clemens whatever award he got in the middle of the game.

3) Fantasia and Ruben both suck!

4) I know its the all star game and the AL was leading and all but talking to the manager in the dugout while the game is happening is just plain wrong.

5) I guess Taco Bell just wrote off that million dollars they gave away since that fat guy who throws as hard as Matt Morris was still able to hit a target the size of rhode island. Where's the drama.

6) Danny Kolb!

Dan: I was hoping at the last minute there'd be a mixup forcing Muhammad Ali to sing the national anthem and giving the first pitch to Fantasia.

And I'll say this much.. good thing Piazza wore a catchers' mask, because I sure bet he was smiling underneath it as the AL rocked Clemens.

Jon Solomon: Comcast has taken to talking to Lary Bowa in the dugout in the middle of certain (non-exhibition) Phillies games. It just isn't right.

Secho: A couple of weeks ago I was watching a White Sox telecast and they had an in-game interview with Ozzie Guillen, and Hawk prefaced it with something like "I hate that we have to do this in the middle of the game but I guess we do" and then handed it off to DJ who threw some softball questions at Ozzie for 2 or 3 minutes. (BTW, I hope Hawk clubs Mariotti upside the head the next time they cross paths) The whole thing just seems so forced as to counteract any possible insight you can get from the dugout mid-game.

How about Ali throwing up the bunny ears behind A-Rod during the team photo? Good stuff.

Dan: Ali really was the perfect guy to have there, considering his long, righ ties with the game of baseball as well as the city of Houston. Nolan Ryan -- you know the guy they had as the Taco Bell pitching coach? -- now HE'S a guy that most certainly had no business being there at all

Jason: I didn't watch the game. Did I miss any shots of Calista Flockhart eating a hot dog?

Levi: I would think that in these worried days of FCC crackdowns, a broadcaster might think twice about interviewing Larry F'in Bowa.

Buck and McCarver interviewed Steve Kline during Saturday's game, and it was actually kind of fun. On a couple of close plays, Kline said, "Oh, he was out, obviously out," and Joe would say, "No he wasn't, Steve."

And in reference to a statement McCarver said about muscle weighing more than fat, Kline said, "Well, then that bacon I had for breakfast this morning must have had some muscle on it." And on why he doesn't stretch much: "I learned that you can't tear fat. So you don't have to stretch."

Labels: all-star game, ichiro suzuki, joe buck, Scooter, tim mccarver

For those of you who will be watching the All-Star Game tonight, there's a bit of information about tonight's National League battery that you should know:

About four years ago, Roger Clemens hit Mike Piazza in the head with a pitch. And then later, in the World Series, Piazza broke his bat on a pitch and the head of the bat flew onto the infield, CAUSING CLEMENS TO ANGRILY TOSS IT IN PIAZZA'S GENERAL DIRECTION!!!!!!!!!!!*

I felt like I ought to pass that on, because I was worried that Joe Buck and Tim McCarver might not think to mention the incident tonight, or show the clip, or mention the incident, or show the clip, or mention the incident, or show the clip, or mention the incident. They might also not think to mention that Clemens and Piazza have put it all behind them.

*I know that using all caps on the Internet is thought to be rude, because it's considered to be like shouting. But I used all-caps anyway, because the story was so big that I HAD TO SHOUT!!!!!

Original comments...

Steve: Speaking of shouting....I AM SO FUCKING TIRED OF HEARING ABOUT DISCO DEMOLITION NIGHT. IT WAS 25 YEARS AGO. THE SECOND GAME OF A DOUBLE HEADER WAS CANCELLED. YOU WOULD THINK IT WAS THE RAPTURE OR THE VIRGIN MARY APPEARED IN THE CENTERFIELD SCOREBOARD EXCEPT NOBODY SAW HER BECAUSE OF THE SMOKE. SHEESH!

Dan: Also, mind you, Piazza was something like 5-for-12 off Clemens with four or so homers before Clemens nailed him in the head. So it wasn't like Clemens accidentially hit him... he had no desire whatsoever to face him. Clemens remains a redneck asshole, all these years later.

I will submit, however, that perhaps my favorite Clemens memory: back in 1986, before I had genuine hatred for the guy. The Mets had just won the World Series (I'm pretty sure this was after Game 7, not 6) and they cut to Clemens in the dugout, head in hands, weeping. Good for him, that loser asshole baby.

Levi: You know what I bet they won't show? I bet they won't show those old Pert Plus ads that Piazza used to do when he had all that great hair.

Thinking about those commercials makes me realize even more clearly how great the ads with Piazza and Alf are: who would have thought that Madison Avenue could top the image of Piazza's freshly-conditioned hair flowing in slow motion? Yet they did, and they did it by reviving a long-dead rubber-suited Melmackian whom no one had given a thought to in decades.

maura: i dunno, piazza was looking pretty shampoo-ad ready at the press meet and greet yesterday. i wish i could find a photo somewhere...

Dan:http://newyork.mets.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/nym/news/nym_news.jsp?ymd=20040712&content_id=797108&vkey=news_nym&fext=.jsp

I'd hit it.

maura: woo!

Labels: all-star game, joe buck, mike piazza, roger clemens, tim mccarver

As is my habit, I watched my recording of last night's "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" during the 5:00 P.M. hour today. Joe Buck was the third guest, promoting tonight's Fox "'Wonderfalls' Memorial Friday Night Broadcast" of the Red Sox-Yankees game, and at one point, the topic turned to Fox's new innovations for their baseball coverage this year.

Their discussion of one of the innovations led me to immediately start the TiVo recording the game, mainly because I wanted to see if it really existed, or if this was a bizarre example of Joe Buck's deadpan sarcastic humor.

The innovation in question is Scooter the animated talking baseball, and he really does exist, much like the bubonic plague really does exist. Now, upon hearing about Scooter, Conan immediately did an impression of him, saying in a high voice, "Hey, kids, a slider moves from side to side!"

Since the game had already started, my TiVo recording only captured the third inning on, and I had to fast-forward all the way to the eighth inning, stopping only to admire Johnny Damon's hair, before Scooter showed up. Now, first of all, referring to him as "animated" is an insult to actual animators, by which I mean that Fox just has him making one certain mouth movement over and over again while he's supposedly talking; even the cheapest 10-frame-per-second cartoons never resorted to that sort of thing (in fact, the cheapest cartoon ever, "Clutch Cargo," superimposed actual mouths on the drawings rather than have incorrect mouth movements).

And, as you might have guessed, Conan's impression was almost perfect; the only fault was that it wasn't long enough. Here is my transcript of the Scooter segment I saw: "What's up, bros? This is Scooter. When Scooter really wants to scoot, it's time for a little heat. The pitcher just rears back and throws me as hard as he can. Whoa! A good fastball comes so fast, a hitter has no time to react. Stee-rike!"

Anyone who thinks Tom Kenny should start limiting himself to HBO sketch comedy programs and maybe "Powerpuff Girls," raise your hand. I thought so.

Original comments...

Levi: You must be making this up. Otherwise, there's no hope in the universe. And I refuse to believe that.

Labels: conan o'brien, joe buck, Scooter, tom kenny