STUPID IS AS STUPID DOES
Broadcasters treating viewers like idiots
SO help me, it wasn’t always like this. Once, you could watch without having to endure an IQ test to determine if you’re an idiot.
During Friday’s Game 6 of the ALCS, Houston catcher and exYankee Brian McCann, demoted to ninth in the order, was at bat. There was one out, two on, no score, bottom of the fifth. FOX’s Joe Buck performed his due diligence: “McCann is 0 for his last 20.”
Then, on a 2-2 pitch — the sixth thrown during that at-bat — McCann lined an RBI double to right.
Apparently, FOX felt we should recognize this as the conclusion to an elaborate setup, as John Smoltz narrated a recorded “Pitch-ByPitch” package concluding with McCann’s double as if copied from a plan. Forgive my cynicism, but it looked more as if that double was produced by McCann’s determined effort, on his 21st try, not to make an out.
In the next half-inning, the Yanks, down 3-0, had two on and two out when Gary Sanchez, on a 3-0 count, did the insufferably impossible: He grounded out on a checked swing.
Smoltz gave that the soft sell, noting that it wasn’t exactly the kind of commitment to swinging or not swinging such a moment demanded, but he first challenged our intellects with, “Sanchez did a good job by not expanding the zone.” Translation: he worked a 3-0 count by not swinging at bad pitches.
The next night, when Sanchez grounded an opposite-field single on a 96-mph pitch, Smoltz made the dubious claim that Sanchez hit it exactly where he tried to hit it.
Sanchez was lucky. Tim McCarver, ex-catcher, is no longer FOX’s lead analyst. In his Barney Fife, Memphis twang, McCarver several times would have piped, “What in the world is he thinking?”
Sanchez seemed to have been on an all-season audition to become a DH. As a catcher, he had it backwards, trying to catch pitches he should have blocked, blocking throws to home he should have caught.
Three times in the ALCS, runners from second scored after San- chez failed to make a catchable catch on a play at home — all while inexplicably still wearing his mask to limit his view.
On the other hand, in the fifth inning of Game 7, the Astros, up 1-0, nailed a runner from third at the plate because McCann ripped off his mask and made a sensational catch and tag. Such inescapable differences either escaped Smoltz or he ignored them.
More than Sanchez, Smoltz tested the nerves. His assessment that Aaron Judge’s HR-saving catch Saturday was among the “greatest Game 7 catches” — it was a very good catch of a ball Judge reasonably should have caught or at least kept in play — was heard as transparent hype.
Smoltz also attached “great” to second baseman Jose Altuve’s throw-out of Chase Headley at first, likely because Altuve fielded the grounder in short right, as per the shift. How great? It might’ve been scored an error had first baseman Yuli Gurriel not scooped Altuve’s low throw.
Saturday, Astros up, 4-0, Houston starter Charlie Morton was pulled after five innings of two-hit, fivestrikeout, 54-pitch domination. That once would have been written and read as a lie. Buck said Morton had been “Outstanding!”
Then why was he pulled? Why was manager A.J. Hinch, again, so eager to toss a winning hand? Did Buck and Smoltz not think that crazy?
For bonus stupidity, FOX, two innings after Judge’s catch, posted word that his “Route Efficiency [was] 94.3%.” Who knew? Given that he caught the ball we figured his route efficiency was 100 percent.
So help me, it wasn’t always like this.