The Broadcast Stinks

TBS, for short.

I was one of the lucky ones during the recent Division Series. I went to the first two games of the series between the Dodgers and the Cardinals. On Saturday for the contest in St. Louis, I discovered that my High-Def reception of TBS was perfectly and amazingly in sync with the Dodgers' local radio broadcast. So, TV sound down, Vin Scully sound up. I was blessed to avoid TBS as much as I did. If I were Jewish, it was my baseball equivalent of Passover. The evil spectre of Chip Caray did not stop at my front door.

But, watching all the other games and series, I got enough of a perspective. TBS needs to get out of the baseball business quickly. They better hope that George Lopez show they are cramming down our gullets is a winner. Because broadcasting live sports should not be a programming option for them any time soon in the future.

I'm increasingly astounded how something as simple and beautiful as the game of baseball can be so cluttered by the nitwits who broadcast it on a national level. I remember the day when a baseball game telecast featured a few different camera angles and maybe some stats superimposed on the screen. Words were used sparingly and images were allowed to speak for themselves.

Yogi Berra jumping into Don Larsen's arms.

Cleon Jones bending his knees just a little in left field to caress the third out of a winning World Series.

Jesse Orosco hoisting his mitt to the heavens.

Kirk Gibson's double clutch around first base in a game where nobody believed what they just saw.

Throughout it all, I could pretty much process what was happening all by myself.

Not anymore. Like everything else in our lives, there is the expectation that we can't think for ourselves.

Look at the screen during any TBS baseball broadcast. Even Evelyn Wood couldn't grasp everything that is thrown at the viewer. And most of it is needless. Take, for instance, the centerfield camera image of a pitcher throwing to a batter. Ball one. Outside. You see it. You know it. But, that apparently is not enough. Instead, off to the right, you find a little graphic box that shows you where each pitch has landed. I got it. Does anybody think that it might be fun for the viewer to think? Gee, all the pitches are away from the batter. Maybe the pitcher is intentionally avoiding the batter? Hmmmm. I guess so. Because TBS' little box is telling me so.

During one game, I kept seeing the stream at the bottom of the screen. Phillies at Rockies, 10PM Eastern. I see it. Actually, I've seen it for the past twenty minutes. Could I now possibly fail a TV listing pop quiz? "Gee, what time is the Phillies-Rockies game?" Duh. Um, 9PM?

When a runner gets on first, TBS photoshops in a graphic that looks like it comes from a craps table in Vegas. It measures the distance from the base. Wow, a visual warning buzzer. The runner is taking a big lead. Gee, I hope the pitcher and the catcher can see that. Oh, they can't? Duh.

The announcing on TBS baseball broadcasts is almost as condescending. During the ninth inning of the Phillies-Rockies' Game 3, some bozo mentioned that the winning run was on first base. If he scores, the game is over. Really? When did Major League Baseball change the rules? I thought a game, like waiting for Godot, was endless. Indeed, during the TBS telecasts I watched over the weekend, waiting for a smart comment from anybody was sort of like waiting for Samuel Beckett to end his play. That still hasn't happened. Meanwhile, Godot came, went, and is already home with a beer.

The TBS baseball announcers are a Who's Who of Who's That. Sportscasters who had their best years while Willie Mays was still wearing a jockstrap. Managers who got canned for being non-geniuses. Now they're explaining a game to me? Meanwhile, I can give them a list of why each of them were fired. TBS even hired some asshole from the Boston Red Sox broadcast crew to do the Red Sox-Angels series. And they wonder why the people in Anaheim have inferiority complexes.

The worst of the worst is TBS' appointed #1 play-by-play guy, Chip Caray. As a baseball announcer, Chip has a great future as a Best Buy assistant manager. Following in the illustrious steps of his drunken slob of a grandfather, Harry, and his absolutely shrill father, Skip, the youngest and the newest Caray has lowered baseball announcing to fathoms previously achieved only by Captain Nemo. Listening to Chip during the Yankees-Twins series, I was mesmerized by just how bad he could be. Pop ups were described as line drives. Sharp singles were dribblers. A ball sailing over a batter's head was just outside. I kept thinking that Chip's play-by-play was seven minutes behind the action.

Over and over and over, Caray kept straining for the most eloquent way to say nothing. He seemed to want to turn every moment into an Al Michaels "do you believe in miracles" memory. All this really did was remind viewers of when they were trying to toilet train their three-year-old. Chip, like little Junior on the bowl, kept triumphantly yelling to us, "Come, Mommy, and see. I made a poopy."

TBS did pair up-and-coming color commentator/former Met pitcher Ron Darling with Chip, just like a third grade teacher might team up the smartest and dumbest kids for a class project. But, essentially, Chip was dead on arrival and all Ron could do was sign the death certificate. In my opinion, Ron is the quintessential baseball color commentator of the future and gets the job as soon as Tim McCarver retires to a life of singing Gershwin at Feinstein's Supper Club. But, the sooner that Darling can extract himself from Caray, the better. Chip is the swine flu that has no known vaccine.

As I watched and listened to the Yankee-Twin series, I kept thinking about my poor friends in New York. Their on-the-air choices for the Yankees were the usual misguided histrionics of that fathead John Sterling and his gun moll partner, Susyn Waldman. Or ESPN's radio coverage featuring the always annoying and "much smarter than you are" Joe Morgan. Or Chip Caray. Gee, New York, first 9/11 and now this???

The Division Series are going away, but, sadly, TBS is not. Lucky me, they're doing the next round for the National League. Good fortune smiles on the fact that I have tickets to all the Dodger home games. And, hopefully, I still get the audio sync between KABC and TBS. If not, there is always a mute button.

Or an airline ticket to the road games. Anything but Chip Caray.

Dinner last night: Cajun shrimp jumbalaya at the Cheesecake Factory.