Fox trying to beat ESPN at own game

FOX IS clearly driven to challenge ESPN for the most absurdly over-produced telecasts. Fox is always eager to compete with ESPN for bad ideas, those that hire the most disreputable as analysts and to saturate games with gadgets, gizmos and ceaseless blather that infuriate genuine fans in order to best serve audiences that aren’t watching.

Tuesday, starting with Joe Buck’s usual lounge act, and followed by split screens, live interviews and needless distractions, Fox quickly delivered the exitvelocity message: If you tuned in to watch or at least pay some attention to the 10-HRs, 25-strikeouts All-Star Game, forget it.

But the telecast did accidentally provide significant video. When Houston’s Alex Bregman hit his topof-the-10th homer, it cleared a wall brightly showing the time of night: 11:41.

And commissioner Rob Manfred’s solemn, soulful claim, last year, that MLB’s No. 1 priority is to create lifelong fans among kids, continues to ring as hollow as a Wiffle ball bat.

NBC/Golf Channel’s coverage of the first round of the British Open, Thursday, was good, expansive. We saw lots of shots from lots of the world’s best players.

Then Tiger Woods teed off. You know the rest.

Woods walking the fairways, Woods graphics, Woods lining up putts from both sides, a videotaped highlight of Woods’ play after he’d played two holes! After three holes, we saw slow-motion, freeze-framer analysis of his swing. And then another, two holes later, and then another.