Tuesday from ESPN’s on-site Stanley Cup Closing, studio host Steve Levy delivered the information that Willie Mays had died:
“The Say Hey Kid, is gone. Too soon. Willie Mays has passed away tonight at the age of 93.”
Too quickly? Maybe Levy had the over 94 in a BetESPN parlay.
Not that I’ve ever been accused of brevity, however in the present day’s broadcasters appear compelled to say far an excessive amount of versus simply sufficient.
Cohen made no point out of that controversy when speaking concerning the Corridor of Famer. Reuters
Identical with rank dishonesty, as if the viewers is simply too silly to know higher or undeserving of broadly recognized truths.
The following night time, the SNY telecast of Mets-Rangers opened to a show-and-tell hagiography of former Texas catcher Ivan Rodriguez. Gary Cohen swooned and swayed. Gee, that “Pudge” was particular!
Sure, he was! Particularly after he added Michelin Man muscle and quadrupled his energy totals within the throes of the “Bottom Line” Bud Selig I-see-nothing Steroid Period. Jose Canseco, who got here clear to call names — and acquired them proper — claimed to have injected Rodriguez with steroids once they had been teammates.
Rodriguez denies utilizing PEDs. So why not sue Canseco for an outrageous libel?
Cohen didn’t know any of this? Then needed to fake that neither did we? Why did SNY even air, not to mention produce, such an open? To insult us?
Within the first inning Cohen, who now identifies the sorts of pitches the moment they attain the plate — usually heard and seen bad-guess experience — famous that Mets starter Sean Manea oddly sufficient throws “sinkers up in the zone.”
Huh? So his sinker sinks to the place batters can hit it quite than sink to the place they swing and miss? Fascinating!
However I suppose locals must be grateful they’d any sport to look at Wednesday. Orioles-Yankees, with Gerrit Cole returning, was bought to be hidden behind a paywall, thus the Yanks, on Rob Manfred’s watch, proceed to attenuate their TV audiences within the quest to maximise fee amongst those that they’ve not but conditioned to dwell with out Yankees’ telecasts.
Does it not daybreak on MLB and its groups that diminished-by-design curiosity breeds diminished returns? The rotten viewership totals for the now-homogenized, thus meaningless All-Star Sport, The place’s Waldo? playoffs and World Collection — as soon as can’t-miss occasions — don’t function wake-up slaps? They as a substitute inform MLB to maintain doing what you’re doing since you’re doing nice?
However sports activities and TV have by no means been extra reliant on us to be morons. This week, with the information media held in decrease and decrease regard amongst those that know once they’re being conned, NBC Information anchor Lester Holt resumed his function as Olympics-on-NBC (and now Peacock pay streaming) shill, introducing Olympic come-ons as legit information.
This, whereas different community information operations fake the Olympics don’t exist — until there’s one thing ugly to report, wherein case it’s NBC’s flip to play silly.
By now we all know the con. Why NBC selects its prime information anchor to function a nightly magic elixir hustler when it ought to insist that he steer extensive from once more being seen and heard as a noxious home-shopping shill begs distrust.
Final week’s U.S. Open golf NBC/Peacock protection was dreadful, as co-anchors Dan Hicks and Mike Tirico made us wince from sudden sharp ache to the ears and dyspeptic misery.
Hicks parrots any golf banality to balls that “find the rough” to final week’s “Brooks Koepka has been betrayed by the short stick.” Hicks and Tirico supplied updates on hopefuls to make Canada’s Olympic golf workforce, as if the Open is an Olympic qualifier.
And when fools — doubtless the drunken and/or betting type — chanted “U-S-A!” in help of Bryson DeChambeau versus foreign-born leaders, the NBC crew purchased in, as if DeChambeau was James Cagney hoofing it whereas singing “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”
And as if we didn’t know that DeChambeau bolted the PGA Tour for Saudi authorities oil and blood cash — in extra of $125 million to simply present up together with his golf equipment.
Then there was his notorious quote that infuriated the households and mates of the three,000 murdered by Saudi terrorists on 9/11: “Nobody’s perfect.”
However none of that, plus runner-up Rory McIlroy’s pro-PGA stance in defiance to DeChambeau and others who took the mullah moola was even hinted at by the cowardly, play-pretend NBC voices.
There have been so many clearly taped pictures dishonestly proven as dwell — “plausibly live” to borrow NBC’s deceitful Olympics time period — that the drained try and idiot everybody fooled few. Or had been we to consider that NBC had the clairvoyance to chop dwell to Francisco Molinari, unseen all telecast, simply as he made a hole-in-one on 17?
And it was clear that the USGA ordered NBC to seek advice from the scrub, grime and weeds that constituted the tough because the “native grass,” the type that will pressure natives to flee.
However this is similar NBC that in January ordered all arms on company deck — NBC, MSNBC, USA, CNBC, the SciFi Channel, the breathless Tirico and even the “Today” present — to joyously rejoice — promote — the nice information that the Dolphins-Chiefs playoff sport would seem completely on paywalled Peacock, the place it might be seen by many tens of millions fewer than if it had appeared on NBC.
One other “It’s all about our fans” cash seize engineered by PSL peddler Roger Goodell, with extra to return.
Anyway, Braves-Yanks in one other Friday night time Yankees sport bought to not be seen, this time to Apple TV+. As boxing refs instruct, “Protect yourselves at all times.” However by now, as residents of Palookaville, that.
Well past bedtime for NBA
The late-night (for — what else? — TV cash) NBA Finals, not less than right here, had been very similar to the previous philosophical query: “If a tree falls in the forest and no one’s there, does it make a sound?”
ESPN continues to encourage us to look at “Sunday Night Baseball” then hides the video games behind distractions it badly confuses with sights. Reader Keith Marston: “It’s like watching interviews from “Fernwood 2 Night,” the satirical speak present spun from the previous “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman” collection.
“Get your Connecticut sports here!” Although not accessible in most of New England, SNY, in view of its contracts and content material, is making ready to rebrand itself the “Mets UConn Sports Network.”
Baseball stays up late too
Rob Manfred’s ”Youngsters are our prime precedence” declaration was on full show Sunday, as Yankees-Purple Sox was performed at night time for ESPN cash — on Father’s Day. MLB couldn’t have insisted on one among two West Coast video games performed, one other in Arizona?
Small world: The vulgar, violent, N-worded artistry of Younger Thug, now on trial for racketeering as chief of a Georgia avenue gang, was as soon as a featured attraction on ESPN. The Atlanta D.A. who ordered Mr. Thug’s arrest was Fani Willis, of Donald Trump trial fame/infamy.
Finest transfer of the native NFL offseason was the Giants permitting DE Jihad Ward to signal with the Vikings. Not gonna lie: I hoped he’d do nothing of optimistic achievement right here, as I’m disinclined to reward anybody named for what has change into shorthand for an Islamic holy struggle.
Credit score to ESPN for not crediting “ESPN’s Buster Olney” for “confirming” the passing of Willie Mays.
