Colorful Commentary
In a late-breaking news story earlier today, it was reported that the FOX broadcasting company decided to fire Steve Lyons, one of its MLB playoff commentators, over some supposedly racially-charged remarks against hispanics. Now, I have no problem with this move, but I believe it should have been on different grounds. And far sooner.
Steve Lyons should have been fired because he sucks as a commentator. This, actually, should have been done a long time ago. If you read the news articles about the story, you'll notice his remarks aren't really that bad in the sense that they're racist, they're just annoying in the fact that he's a moron. He's not a moron because he says these things, it's that he says these things because he's a moron. Get the difference?
FOX has a pretty interesting history with its painfully vanilla baseball coverage. They try to showcase their 'dynamic duo' of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver as often as possible, to the extent that those two are the only voices you'll hear announcing the World Series (with the occasional studio guest that either includes A) Former or vacationing players that don't get enough air time (e.g. Al Leiter) B) former or vacationing players that aren't at all interesting (e.g. Lou Piniella) or C) Celebrities promoting their upcoming FOX shows or movies).
Buck is about as interesting as an entymologist at a dental convention (not to mention the personality of a Filene's mannequin), and McCarver seems to like to point out aspects of baseball that only Khazakstani hermits would find educational ("he really needs to throw more strikes if he wants to stop walking people" or "the game's all about getting hits"). Frankly, Bert & Ernie would attract a larger audience, and would at least keep it interesting with some witty banter about cookies in bed.
I hate FOX baseball even more than I hate FOX football (and let's face it, that's pretty bad, especially considering the NFL graphics are shown to you by members of the autobots). What they need to do, in my humble opinion, is go one of two ways.
1. Hire an old radio play-by-play guy to do the entire game. No color commentary, no nothing. Just an old-school play-by-play guy to bring you the action. It's the World Series for crying out loud, if the games aren't enough to keep you interested, a 5th inning commentary from Tim Robbins isn't going to either.
2. Have two knowledgable guys in the booth-- one who will make poignant observations, and one who has the wherewithall to explain those observations to the audience. And by poignant, I don't mean picking out obscure statistics ("Jones has performed well in these situations this year, he's hitting .386 with a runner on 2nd and a 2-2 count in the 4th inning when trailing by at least 3 runs"). Real fans know those stats are BS, and newcomer fans have no idea what they mean.
By poignant I'm talking about pointing out baserunning mistakes, fielder's position, tipping pitches, etc. Things that fans should know, things that announcers in the booth need to point out because most of the people in the audience wouldn't already be thinking them. In other words, if I have to roll my eyes one more fucking time at McCarver's ramblings, I'm ripping out the speakers in my TV.
I hate those guys.
You know, OLN (the random cable sports network that features the NHL, along with professional lumberjacking) does sports coverage better than FOX. Most regional sports networks have better sports coverage than FOX. Why is this backwards?
Where was I going with this?
Oh, right. The Steve Lyons thing.
Bottom line is that FOX shouldn't have had to fire Steve Lyons for being borderline offensive (no pun intended). It never should have been said-- not only because it was dumb, but because dumb people shouldn't be heard on sports telecasts. You shouldn't have to wait around for a guy like that to screw up, you have to avoid screwing up by not hiring him in the first place.
posted by BJC @ 8:19 PM
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