Twelfth in a series.
Broadcast: Fox Saturday Baseball, Yankees at Mets, 6/28/08; Announcers: Joe Buck (play-by-play), Tim McCarver (analyst), Ken Rosenthal (reporter)
We interrupt our regular programming to bring you this Very Special Episode of Joe’s MLB On TV Report, or JMLBOTVR. Or should that be JMOTR since “Major League Baseball” and “Television” are already in acronym mode? Anyway, I wanted to take a look at the national broadcasts as well as the teams', but I decided that to do a proper review, I need to see each network’s top broadcasters. So for ESPN that means Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, which leaves out the weeknight games. For TBS that means…well, I’m not sure, but they only do one game a week so when I get to them, I’ll take whoever’s working.
And for Fox that means Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. But this presented problems. Buck isn’t always working during the summer, and when football season comes around he’ll be on the NFL beat until the playoffs. Sometimes McCarver is off as well. And even when they're working, with regional games each Saturday I’m at the mercy of the mysterious person(s) who decide which game will be seen locally.
This past Saturday, with the TV listings saying that I’d be getting the New York-New York game, I was counting on Buck and McCarver. To my horror, when it came time for the game the White Sox and Cubs were on instead. Fortunately, it was only due to a rain delay. A half-hour later they switched to New York, and despite another rain delay during the game I managed to see a full game with Buck and McCarver. Just so you know, I didn’t take anything that happened during the rain delays into account. In fact, I barely paid attention to that other game.
Twelfth in a series.
Broadcast: Fox Saturday Baseball, Yankees at Mets, 6/28/08; Announcers: Joe Buck (play-by-play), Tim McCarver (analyst), Ken Rosenthal (reporter)
We interrupt our regular programming to bring you this Very Special Episode of Joe’s MLB On TV Report, or JMLBOTVR. Or should that be JMOTR since “Major League Baseball” and “Television” are already in acronym mode? Anyway, I wanted to take a look at the national broadcasts as well as the teams', but I decided that to do a proper review, I need to see each network’s top broadcasters. So for ESPN that means Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, which leaves out the weeknight games. For TBS that means…well, I’m not sure, but they only do one game a week so when I get to them, I’ll take whoever’s working.
And for Fox that means Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. But this presented problems. Buck isn’t always working during the summer, and when football season comes around he’ll be on the NFL beat until the playoffs. Sometimes McCarver is off as well. And even when they're working, with regional games each Saturday I’m at the mercy of the mysterious person(s) who decide which game will be seen locally.
This past Saturday, with the TV listings saying that I’d be getting the New York-New York game, I was counting on Buck and McCarver. To my horror, when it came time for the game the White Sox and Cubs were on instead. Fortunately, it was only due to a rain delay. A half-hour later they switched to New York, and despite another rain delay during the game I managed to see a full game with Buck and McCarver. Just so you know, I didn’t take anything that happened during the rain delays into account. In fact, I barely paid attention to that other game.
Many of the things that are wrong with baseball telecasts — the noisy graphics, the multiple replays and weird camera shots, the in-game interviews, multiple shots of celebrities in the stands, the three-in-a-booth setup — either were started or made worse by Fox. However, much of it isn’t evident during the regular season. For the All-Star Game and postseason games, Fox is much more annoying. By comparison, Saturday’s game was almost sedate.
Still, there was an unexpected new wrinkle. Four times during the game, replays were “presented” by a company that makes paint. To the sound of a whooshing noise, a paint roller swept across the screen, leaving the entire screen painted over (a different color each time) with the company logo on top. Then it swept in the opposite direction, removing the “paint job,” and the replay commenced. Let’s hope that this company can’t afford the cost of playoff advertising.
Speaking of advertising, after the 7th inning Fox goes back to their studio host Jeanne Zelasko for a “Gamebreak.” Normally this means some highlights, or a score update from other games. On this day, the entire segment was devoted to the announcement that recently-retired New York Giant Michael Strahan was joining the cast of “Fox NFL Sunday” this fall.
Fox also had someone announce the starting lineups in the first inning. This wasn’t exactly a job that demanded stars from each team. For the Yankees it was someone named David Robertson, who apparently was just called up from the minors. At least he was a Yankee, though. The Mets’ lineup was presented, in broken English, by Danilo Gallinari, the Knicks’ top draft pick from Italy.
Buck and McCarver delivered pretty much what you expect from them. Buck comes up with as many one-liners as he can possibly fit into a game. It can get on the nerves, but at least Buck is occasionally funny. When Jason Giambi and his new, widely-discussed mustache came up to bat for the first time, Buck said Giambi “looked like he walked out of a casting call for ‘Starsky and Hutch.’” Still, he’d be much more enjoyable if he toned down the personality some.
McCarver’s overanalyzing gives him a kind of a know-it-all air. He didn’t have this when he started his broadcasting career with the Phillies in 1980. (An aside: McCarver retired after the 1979 season but was put on the active roster in September 1980 so that he could play in four different decades. During that month he conducted post-game interviews with other players — in uniform.)
The problem with having a know-it-all attitude is that sometimes you can be wrong. McCarver declared that the loss of Damion Easley in August 2007 to an ankle injury was “a big blow to the Mets.” Easley is a 38-year-old career .252 hitter who only played in 76 games in 2007 before hurting his ankle. Of the many factors that helped cause the Mets’ epic collapse, I don’t think Easley’s injury is too high on the list. McCarver also said, after the Mets’ Ramon Castro homered, that Castro is “one of the more powerful eighth-place hitters” in the National League. It was Castro’s second homer of the year and 43rd of his career. His career slugging percentage is .414. It’s possible that Castro fits McCarver’s description, but if so, it says more about the other 8th hitters than Castro.
There were a few times during the game when Buck brought in Ken Rosenthal for discussions. The good thing about Rosenthal is that he’s actually a reporter. They didn’t go to him for reports on frivolous subjects or team promotions, as often happens during local broadcasts.
As usual, there were interviews with the two managers taped between innings and then played while the game was going on. They’re distracting enough but the ballpark music was so loud during the interview with Met skipper Jerry Manuel that it wasn’t easy to hear him speak. Hmmm…maybe music is the key to enjoying Tim McCarver more… Grade: C-plus. — Joe Guckin
