October 2000

Fox's Baseball "Coverage"

On The Tube

Okay, so I avoided it all season, but now that we are in the World Series, I have been forced to watch Fox baseball coverage. Yes, forced. There is no reason anyone would choose it.

First of all, Fox has a new tagline when they go to commercial. This tagline has premiered during, I can’t emphasize this enough, the World F-ing Series. The tagline is "Fox Sports, Home of NASCAR". What? Umm, okay, first of all, car racing isn’t a sport. It is an elaborate game. Don’t get me wrong- car racing is great entertainment. Anytime a human being is in a vehicle that goes faster than 150 mph, I’m interested, especially if it is attached to the ground. But, it’s not a sport unless you have to run. Wrestling and boxing (and other martial sports) are the only exception. Some of you might be thinking that golf should be included, but some of you are have cream of wheat for brains.

So, the tagline can be reduced to: "Fox Sports, home of a non-sport". And, even if it was a sport, how do you compete with the World Series? More importantly, why would you? Their tagline should be: "Fox Sports, it’s the World Series, and you’re in America. If you are watching something else, you are a godless Commie bastard and you will be destroyed. Don’t think we won’t do it. We have Rupert Murdoch’s money, we can crush you." (Note: whenever someone mentions Rupert Murdoch, I strongly recommend shouting "Murdoch, you crazy!" a la Mr. T, try it out, you’ll see.)

But because Fox Sports sucks, they have this crappy tagline.

Now, why else do they suck. Well, in the booth we have Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Joe Buck, who after one inning of no hits, walks or errors declares, "Well, Pettite is perfect so far." Now, I’m rooting for the Mets all the way, but in the interest of sportsmanship I don’t want the whammy put on anyone. For those of you unfamiliar with baseball superstition (and that’s okay, we are here to educate), you never mention when a game is perfect so far. Never. In the dugout when the team is hitting, the players don’t talk to, sit near, or even look at a pitcher that is working on a perfect game, a no hitter, or a shutout. It’s really not a good idea to talk to them anyway, but especially not if the pitcher is working on any kind of shutout. And you never, never, never mention it out loud.

So, Tim McCarver may be merely annoying, but Joe Buck should be banned from announcing games after this particular indiscretion. And for being flat-out overbearing. I won’t go into detail here, because if you watch the world Series with the sound on for just 5 minutes this year you will understand.

Since I am not one of those commentators on the way things are who merely attack, I have a solution. In the future, Jon Miller will call all big games and Bob Costas will provide commentary. I’m not sure how we can get them to call both the NL and AL championship series, but this is a detail that can be worked out later.