Richard Sandomir of the New York Times takes a look at ESPN's coverage of Sunday's four-homer barrage by the Red Sox and doesn't like what he sees. He calls the worldwide leader on the carpet for playing it loose with reaction shots of Theo Epstein and Manny Ramirez during replays of the record-tying binge. Calling ESPN a masseuse of history, Sandomir reports,
As ESPN rolled the replay of Drew’s drive, Miller said, “Theo Epstein was watching and was pretty impressed.” In a taped reaction shot, Epstein, the Red Sox’ general manager, appeared to say, “Oh my God.”
A few minutes later, as ESPN replayed Lowell’s shot, Miller said, “Manny Ramírez was watching it from the dugout.” Ramírez jumped off the bench, exultant, and hugged a teammate or a coach.
Then the third inning ended, and ESPN offered a sequence of the four home runs, and this time, Epstein’s reaction no longer came after Drew’s home run, but after Varitek’s, the last in the record-tying run.
In the seventh, the sequence was shown again, and Ramírez’s reaction was shifted to look like he was celebrating Varitek’s shot, not Lowell’s. Epstein’s reaction shot followed, again making him look like he has been stunned by one home run when he was really amazed by another.
In the sequence that ended the broadcast, ESPN shifted Epstein out of his original reality to look like he was reacting to Lowell’s home run, not Drew’s or Varitek’s. He was now unstuck in time, like Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse-Five.”
So it goes at the sports monolith.
More damning and also from Sandomir's column is the lack of research done by Jon Miller and Joe Morgan. I'm sure you're as gobsmacked as I am to hear that Morgan shirked research. It was the second time in history and it just so happened that the first time it happened Tito Francona, the father of Boston manager Terry, was one of the four to go deep. But when they interviewed the skipper and asked if he remembered the other guys who went deep he posited Rocky Colavito as a name. The two chuckleheads in the booth agreed it must have been Colavito, even though he was gone from the Indians four years before the game in question.
It's not hard to go to Retrosheet and call up this information. It took me about a minute all told to search for and find the game, and I'm not even working for a network that's paying millions to televise baseball and, ideally, do a good job at the task.
He also reports a couple of doozies worthy of Fire Joe Morgan and Awful Announcing from the mouth of the always willing to embarass himself Morgan.
Morgan had a little trouble remembering history when he recalled that Joe Adcock hit four home runs in a game “just before” Willie Mays did. If you consider seven years “just before,” then Morgan was correct.
ESPN analyst Joe Morgan lauded Yankees Manager Joe Torre for removing Wright after the third inning. “That’s what makes him such a good manager,” Morgan said.
Why go for accuracy or insight when you can stultify the masses?
Comments