Major League Baseball’s divisional series started this week, and it ushered in a new era in baseball coverage, with playoff games shifting from exclusive FOX rights to shared rights with FOX and TBS.
The series themselves have been pretty dull, with three of the series being sweeps with little doubt about the outcome of any games, and the Indians-Yankees series going just four games.
But don’t tell that to TBS announcer Chip Caray, who was intent on filling every pitch and hit ball with hyperbole.
"Five scintillating innings of two-run ball by player of the game Paul Byrd," Caray said on the Monday night telecast.
Did I miss the meeting where we decided that starts that didn’t even qualify for the quality starts statistic were "scintillating"?
Byrd was much more reserved about it in his post-game interview, explaining that his teammates picked him up by scoring lots of runs and playing good defense.
This isn’t to indict all of the TBS crews, who have for the most part blown away their FOX brethren, but it’s telling of a more symptomatic problem: Baseball isn’t allowed to breathe on its own anymore.
FOX has had this problem for years. They’ve decided that baseball needs to be humanized and energized, so they overproduce all the elements around it.
Why have a color man explain basic pitching strategy when you can have a talking baseball do it, or why talk about the game when we can talk about what kind of cars Derek Jeter likes?
Add to that, long still-shots of big Chevy billboards in the stands during the game because designated commercial breaks aren’t enough advertising.
While TBS has so far been immune to most of this, leaving us with only a few billboard close-ups and excessive advertising for the new Frank Caliendo TV show, Caray took it upon himself to prove that he is witty and clever.
He went to great lengths to show us this with lines such as "Alex Rodriguez may be the MVP, but depending on the day, it could be Most Valuable or Most Vilified" or "The Melkman with a dose of vitamin D" when referring to Yankees outfielder Melky Cabrera.
There’s something being lost in all of this in that there is a game of baseball being played on the field.
This is the thing that people have tuned in to watch. They don’t tune into baseball games for flaming graphics or to learn about David Eckstein’s wife.
No, for the most part, people tune in to baseball games because, get this – they care about baseball. It’d be nice if someone understood this, because the way it’s currently being presented, it’s almost an afterthought.
Do people think baseball is boring? Absolutely. There are a lot of people who think baseball is boring. And there isn’t a talking baseball or half-baked turn of phrase that’s going to make them suddenly tune in. It’d be nice if the people bringing baseball to our homes realized this and stopped trying to pander to them, because all it does is ruin it for the real fans.
