It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame… let’s play two! Tonight, the Fall Classic moves to St. Louis with the series tied 1-1, and so many questions abound…
-Will Fox’s ratings continue to disappoint? The ratings average is down about half a million viewers from last year’s Series (between the White Sox and the Greatest Team Of All Time, The Houston Astros, In Their First Ever World Series)… and the bad news for Fox is that last year’s Series was the worst-rated of all time. All hope is not lost — Game 2 on Sunday night garnered a respectable 18.2 million viewers, up from 12.8 on Saturday, when, clearly, everyone watched at a bar — but the net heads have to be praying for this series to go 6 or 7 games to make up for all the lost time.
-Will Fox find more ways to make people change the channel? Frankly, they deserve all the mediocre ratings they can get, so long as their broadcast team includes the semi-literate Tim McCarver and they see the games more as a way to jack up the ratings for Justice than, you know, the WORLD SERIES. (Sure, they got rid of Scooter, the Talking Baseball, but he never should have existed in the first place.) And now, with their decision to renew their broadcast contract through 2013, they’ve announced their intention to extend the length of commercial breaks between innings.
-Could the commercials that fill those breaks make me less inclined to continue breathing? So far, it’s been an incessant cycle of promos for Fox’s fall shows (no, I’m still not going to watch Justice), Ron Livingston inexplicably shilling for Sprint (although you should all be watching Standoff), and Jay-Z making us beg him to return to retirement. But no commercial has gotten under my skin more than John Cougar Mellencamp’s "This Is Our Country" spot for Chevrolet, a commercial so horrid that it’s already spawned a parody and plunged me into existential dread because I do not have room in my apartment for a Chevy Silverado and thus have begun to question if I do, in fact, still live in America or not. (Perhaps the one bright spot in Mellencamp’s patri-erotic ubiquity? We have yet to see a Toby Keith Amerigasm Ford commercial.)
I’m trusting at least some of you care about this, so — what’s to be done? How could Fox make its sports coverage somehow more palatable? How many of you are forced to watch baseball with the sound off at home, or spend way too much money on beer down at the sports bar just to escape? And is Joe Theismann’s yapping on Monday Night Football better than/worse than/exactly as horrific as McCarver’s? Discuss.
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The Astros? Seriously? I find Tim McCarver to be charming, even though he is a bafoon at times. The chance of me watching this Series is about as good as Justice’s chance at winning an Emmy.
Thank you, Whitney! One, for actually writing about sports on TV (which is, after all, entertainment) and, two, for pointing out how horrible Fox’s baseball coverage is. Between McCarver making me want to hurl blunt objects at the TV by saying THE MOST OBVIOUS THINGS ABOUT THE SPORT (“what the hitter’s trying to do is advance the runner”) and Joe Buck’s smug sense of self-importance (seriously, he’s on TV, like, every day), watching sports on FOX is not enjoyable. Side note: does anybody understand why there’s always a robot jumping up and down when FOX comes back from commercial breaks during football games? Unfortunately, sports broadcasting buffoonery is not limited to FOX. As you point out, Joe Theisman is not much better, and the only reason he has the job is because he was the QB on a Superbowl-winning team, nearly got his leg broken off on live TV, and because his name rhymes with Heisman. I think, for one series/weekend, the networks should allow everyday fans to call games. We’re really not that much less-qualified than the so-called experts.
Tim McCarver and Joe Buck are the WORST two announcers in the history of baseball. Tim McCarver is a bumbling idiot who makes more mistakes than Robert Downey Jr. Joe Buck think’s he’s some messiah of sports when in fact he’s a smug little prick.
I couldn’t agree more with Dave’s comment. Seriously, the ROBOTS HAVE TO GO! Everything about Fox’s sports coverage (be it baseball, football, etc…) is over-the-top flashy.
They also forget that we’re tuning in to watch the game because we have no other choice. There’s a reason we’re not watching “The War at Home” and “Justice,” and it has nothing to do with us not being aware of it.
The only way Fox can fix sports is by realizing the one thing everyone knows BUT them…they are NOT bigger than the game.
Go Astros!
(Effing Braves.)
Joe Buck is a blight on the sports world. He is arrogant, pious and just a total dickhead.
Ha ha – that’s so funny about Jack Berger on the Sprint Commericals and the Jay Z commerical. My fiance and I commented on both when we saw them.
Living in St. Louis and being a Cardinals fan, my fiance wanted to mute the tv and turn on the radio, but there are two problems 1) the radio broadcast happens before the tv broadcast, so we would already know what happened before we saw it and 2) Mike Shannon is just as much of a baffoon as anybody, although, sometimes an entertaining one.
I refuse to watch any sporting event that pre-empts fresh episodes of House.
Joe Theisman is alright. Hes not soooo bad. Baseball on the other hand…is mind-numbingly boring sometimes..that could be why as well. But Fox has a lot of places to improve, a whole lot.
You’re right, Scooter was a blight upon our national integrity and it is fantastic that he is gone. Buck & McCarver are awful, but, the reason that they are so awful is that Fox makes them dumb-down their already idiotic repartee so that “non-baseball” fans will understand. Dude, it’s baseball, not astro-physics, they’ll understand what a bunt is without an explaination. Ug. They should just let whoever the home-TV announcer team announce the game. They may not be good, but they’ll be better than this crap.
Also, can we call a moritorium on all funky camera angles? We do not need a camera under the mound so we can look up the pitcher’s nose. I hate that I have to watch the World Series this way.
My biggest problem with the Fox coverage (aside from the extra-long commercial breaks, the screen-cluttering ads and the ridiculous graphics) is that the announcers seem to think that what they’re doing is hosting a talk show while some kind of sporting event is going on in the background. Here’s a hint, guys: The people watching this program? They really aren’t all that interested in you. Also, it might kind of help if you familiarized yourselves with the teams, rather than just reading their press packets out loud.
As to your comment about Theisman, I’d take three more of him as long as I didn’t have to hear Kornheiser whine about his damn fantasy team again. Is there anything worse that ANYONE talking about their fantasy football team? That’s fine if you play and if you want to talk about it with your league-mates, that’s great. But the rest of us, it’s conversation hell.
I too hate the John Cougar “This is our Country” commercial. Using scenes from 9/11, New Orleans,Vietnam, and the Civil Rights movement to sell trucks is shameful.
I’m so glad someone finally mentioned that robot during football games. My husband and I were mystified on that one.
The baseball coverage is so-so. I really don’t listen to what the commentators are saying. I tune them out as much as possible. I think it’s funny when they criticize someone’s attempt to block the ball; as if they could do better. Or when they think a hitter meant to hit the ball where it landed; the hitter is just damn lucky he hit it at all.
And, I love John Mellencamp (I’m a Hoosier) but I’m tired of that commercial as well. Way overplayed (like Taylor Hicks’ Ford commercial).
What are you talking about? This has been the best coverage I’ve ever seen. Of course, my wife is really sick, so I’m watching all of the games on TiVo after she’s fallen asleep. When you fast-forward between every pitch, the announcers are almost palatable.
The PlayStation2 graphics are annoying. Replaying every pitch is annoying. The games ending after everybody in the eastern time zone has gone to bed is annoying. The FOX shows are annoying. And a whole month of playoffs might be too much.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Tim McCarver and Joe Buck are horrific. Not only is their analysis of the game geared toward five-year-olds, they spend about half of the game discussing non-baseball related topics like crossword puzzles. John Miller and Joe Morgan on ESPN aren’t that much better, so it probably just means that it’s impossible to find national broadcasters for baseball who aren’t idiots. Or at least it’s impossible to except networks to hire people who aren’t idiots.
The worst broadcasting of all time award actually goes to ESPN, who this pass summer, had a baseball announcer, Dave O’Brien, call the World Cup. That was painful. I actually turned the channel to Univision, and I don’t even speak Spanish.
With all of this announcing idiocy though, I have to say that I can’t blame McCarver and Buck or Fox’s idiotic coverage for the World Series ratings. Considering Fox has the monopoly on the real-time broadcast, anyone who is going to watch is forced to watch it on Fox. The real problem is that nobody gives a crap about the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals World Series except Cardinals fans, Tigers fans, and die-hard baseball fans (I fall into the last one, as well as the sub-category of ‘People Who Hate Tony La Russa’s Over-rated Smug Self and Want to Watch His Team Lose’). Had this been a Mets v. Yankees subway series I guarantee the ratings would have been through the roof, stupid graphics and broadcasting or no.
I hate football, so I have no opinion on that front. But John Cougar Mellencamp needs to get off my TV screen yesterday and take his stupid song with him.
Why watch something you despise and whine about it online? Turn the channel, and/or get a life. I gave up on baseball after the last strike. I’ve got better things to do. As to McCarver, we all know he’s a buffoon on TV. Maybe this concept is new to you? If so, develop a hobby, and quit yer whining!
Thom:
I don’t despise baseball, that’s why I wish I could watch it without having to put up with Tim McCarver and Joe Buck. I despise football, therefore I don’t watch that. I think I have the whole don’t watch things I don’t like concept pretty down.
Why come to a blog about a topic which you gave up on over ten years ago and post about it? Clearly you don’t have better things to do. Develop a hobby and quit your whining.
That should have been addressed to Thomas and not Thom. I apologize for inexplicably cutting off half your name. But not for, you know, telling you to stop whining…
As a Detroit fan, I am obliged to watch.
Most Detroiters agree that the announcers are terrible, but we of course add biased to the mix (Buck is a regular Cardinals announcer and McCarver is a former Cardinal player who actually caused the last out when the Tigers beat the Cards in ‘68).
I don’t feel bad that two little cities like Detroit and St. Louis are in the running. There’s way more to the country than the coasts. In fact, I hope in snows for Game 6. That’ll teach the national media to root for the Yankees.
Who is the color commentator with the crazy hair before and after the game?? He is clearly a moron, but I look forward to ripping him every game. Fox give that man a contract.
Tim McGarver – ugh….Lose him. I actually liked the John Mellencamp commercial the first time I saw it, before the Silverado came on. – Watching the shots of Katrina damage, etc. I thought it was a Bush-bashing commerical so was all for it. But then the truck came on and I thought, how odd. However, the man’s ego!! I know this is not the question, but why was he late singing for Game 2? Hair, make-up, the ability to make 45,000 fans at Comerica and millions watching TV wait for him? I saw him last year in concert and he took a break after 6 songs. It consisted entirely of video footage of His Greatness collecting awards and aw-shucking on talk shows in the very early days.
Jennifer, when the Mets played the Yankees in the World Series, the TV ratings were dismal.
I guess nobody wants to talk about how these “awful” announcers picked up on the goop on Kenny Rogers’ pitching hand before anybody else did.
I just looked it up, and you’re right Todd, those ratings were horrific. So I’ll amend my statement to just be that most fans probably don’t care, period, if their team isn’t in the World Series.
Also, considering that the game was broadcast in HD with all these insanely bizarre close-up angles, it was probably relatively easy for Tim McCarver and Joe Buck to notice the “clump of dirt” on Kenny Rogers’ hand. It doesn’t take any knowledge of baseball at all– just eyes. We also don’t know that they picked up on it before anybody else. For all we know a technician in the booth could have pointed it out. Either way, good for them for at least bringing attention to it. It doesn’t change the fact that the rest of their broadcast was horrible, they were horrible for the other game, in the Championship series, and the Saturday afternoon baseball games they do during the regular season. Half of their broadcast is fluff and the other half is not geared toward any type of real analysis. Maybe that’s Fox’s fault and not theirs, I don’t know. Either way, I hate listening to them and wish something would change.
Ok, McCarver has NO business being in the booth… Buck is alright, he’s clearly a Cardinal which is a problem, but it could be worse. I could have SWORN Justice was cancelled too… and the cougar song is awful, we get it… chevy is made in america, let it go. I am a redskin fan until i die, however, Theisman blows… no way around it. And whoever said it is right, watching sports on Fox is NOT enjoyable…. thats all i got. A lot of what you people say is pretty stupid on here, do you all actually think about what you say before you type it??? i dont care that much, but since i started writing i figured i’d mention it… The person writing the original blog though was right on with pretty much everything that was said…
I can’t speak for anyone else, but my reason for not watching this year is a lack of interest in either team. If this year’s series had included Atlanta, Chicago, Boston, the Yankees, or Dodgers, I’d probably watch. This was an interesting year for MLB, with a lot of new folks at the top. I’d watch the series, but can’t get riled up for St. Louis and don’t find anything interesting about Detroit. No offense to anyone who lives in those towns (I am sure that St. Louis and Detroit are both fantastic cities), and remember that my hometeam is the craptacular Nationals. If I didn’t live in DC, I probably wouldn’t watch THEM play on tv either…
Yanks are gone and so am I !!!!
Only solution would have been METS vs. yankees II!
I really dislike Tim McCarver. He always points out the obvious, but never in a very astute way. The guy is horrid. I’d rather have Joe Morgan announce the games.
And those John Mellencamp commercials. They make it look like Chevrolet had a hand in every incident, occurence, event that is in that montage. Puh-leaze.
I’m still watching the games even if my Yanks are out of the Series. Can’t get enough baseball.
why is a cardinal homer announcing the world series?? Joe Buck’s voice is irratating alone……….