TALKING SHOW
Smoltz blinded to idea of silence
IT’S NOT an unreasonable request. All you want to do is watch the ballgame. But ... It’s another of those systemic epidemics, no good reason for it, and easily fixed or treated — like a runny nose, a loose screw or John Smoltz. But it persists and even worsens as part of the plan.
Wednesday afternoon on Fox, Game 2 of the Phillies-Padres NLCS. Happy to have a game to watch. Initially. The Phils led 1-0, two on, one out, when Philly’s Matt Vierling hit a high fly to right.
Clearly, right fielder Juan Soto, even while wearing sunglasses, lost the ball in the sun. As he ducked to avoid a beaning, the ball fell, a run scored, Vierling wound up on second.
It was nothing we hadn’t seen before. It was self-evident, selfexplanatory, not an uncommon occurrence in daylight baseball. As Einstein, the theoretical physicist (and Rubinstein, the kosher butcher) would have explained, “It was what it was.”
But not these days, not with Smoltz and many like him in the booth. Smoltz did what he does, and what he has done since Fox hired him in 2014: He applied far more analysis to the episode than it was worth, again driving discriminate viewers batty before their fannies could crease an easy chair. Ready for it? Here goes: “Yeah, we talked about it, and that sun hit him in the absolute perfect spot at the last minute. He tried to shade it with the glove, but he can’t pick it up.
“Sometimes you’ve got to get on the side of the sun, which is hard to do when it’s directly pointing in your eyes. He tried everything he did. He had the sunglasses and it was unfortunate, really, for the Padres.”
At that point Smoltz had to stop to draw a breath, but he wasn’t done.
“It’s the worst feeling in the world. I mean, you’re trying your best to track that ball, and you’ve got to move and track it. “And then, one, you look back to the ball and all you see is a glare, the sun, obviously.” Yes, obviously. Still, Smoltz wasn’t done: “The reason the right fielder, I think, has the hardest ability to do just this is that it’s directly at him. He has no way to really shield it. The center fielder can shield it, he has the angles. Obviously, the left fielder can do the same thing. “But the right fielder, based on where that sun is, looks like it’s a direct impact.” In other words, Soto lost the ball in the sun. And then back to Smoltz analyzing every pitch. Expect no relief Sunday, as the Fox analyst assigned to the GiantsJaguars game at 1 p.m. is Mark Schlereth — who, since he was hired by Fox in 2017, has specialized in making non-stories extra long. Game 5 of Padres-Phillies, with Smoltz at the wheel, is scheduled for FS1 at 2:40. This is not a drill. Consider yourself warned.