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By YankTank, Section Journals
I made 10 prop bets before this weekend. And by "made," I mean I invented them, as an exercise in Yanks/Sox rote predictability. The good news is that I would have been up a grand or so, had I actually put money on them (and if they actually existed). The bad news is that it made for unequivocally the worst announced game I've ever seen. Ever.
How I netted out...
1. Montage culminating in the Jeter dive into the stands and the Sox ALCS/2004 series celebration...1/8 to 1
2.) Decibel level at Ortiz's first at bat results in significant crack in stadium's structural foundation...5 to 1
3.) Over/under on Beckett pitch count before he transitions from aggressively cocky and solid to aggressively wild and head-hunting:51
4.) TV screen splitting into 2 boxes, game taking up about 1/4 of screen, coverage of lukewarm golf match/Bonds steroids/either Manning for no reason at all takes up rest of screen...2 to 1
5.) Screen will split when bases are loaded with 2 outs and a tie score...7 to 1
6.) Announcers will devote at least 25 seconds each time Ortiz is up to underscore that his MVP comments were truly taken out of context and that Ortiz and Jeter have been known to play a squash match or 2 in the off season....15 to 1
7.) Over/under on avg syllables per word in adjectives announcers use to describe the gorgeous weather: 17
8.) Percentage of game devoted to historical rivalry stats/1978 season: Over/under-- 65%
9.) Red Sox fans in stadium maintain an unwavering arrogant and hostile attitude; deflect yankee heckling by pointing to 2004 WS Champion t-shirt...2 to 1
10.) Final nail secured in coffin...3 to 1 Back to props #6-8: It sucks the Yanks couldn't clinch it at home. But seriously, it's only a matter of time for us and the Mets. Which is why I could only muster marginal chagrin over the loss. (No mistake, I hate losing to the Sox like I hate the pitch-by-pitch replay, Sarah Jessica Parker, and fat people on the subway. This isn't a Sox-esque, "Whatever, I didn't even WANT to win anyway" hedging/qualifying.) Whatever rage was diffused because of worthlessness of the series, ESPN ensured that my ire was sufficiently maintained, courtesy Joe Morgan and Jon Miller. I'll say it again: across the boards, including all sports throughout the years, that was by far the single worst announced game I have ever listened to ever. It was shocking. At one point, my sister turns to me and says, "What would you do if you were blind and had to rely on these jokers to call the game for you?" Honestly, I would probably envy Helen Keller for being not only blind, but deaf, too. (Oh, look, the bullet train pulling up right now!) First off, ever since my sister said Joe Morgan is Cleveland from Family Guy, I can't listen to him without picturing a cartoon sitting up in the broadcast booth. But an animated character would undoubtedly contribute more value than Morgan. It was unreal. I swear to God I am not exaggerating when I say 95% of the game centered around the MVP issue. There were more split screen shots of Jeter and Ortiz than there were fans at the stadium. At another point, in the middle of Tweedle-dee and -dum's MVP discussion of epic proportions, Cairo makes a sick diving play at second and gets the batter out. Morgan says, "Wait, before we address that, I want everyone to hear what I have to say about this MVP issue." And that right there basically set the tone for the entire game. It was like just watching a highly viscous episode of The Real World, where no characters get drunk and sleep together, so the producers have an episode based on the fact someone ate a housemate's hardboiled egg without asking. Just 2 bobblehead dolls chatting it up about nothing, with that whole yanks/sox game going on in the periphery--a backdrop to the Miller-Morgan "variety" show. And it might as well have been in that grainy green video MTV uses to denote risque after-hours behavior. Because that was about the level of clarity framing the game. Other highlights: --Boston looped up a pop-up in the final innings to advance the tying run to 3rd: "FALL IN! FALL IN! FALL IN!" I don't ask for an unbiased broadcast. I know the Yanks are the "evil empire" etc. But I would like the announcers to at least not call the game as if they bet their weight in gold on Boston, (which, btw, based on their combined girth of those 2, would be worth more than all the Pete Rose signed apology baseballs in the world). --A fascinating 15 minute tangent on Garry Maddox and a chair he bought Jon Miller. Who? No, really. Garry Maddox? Yeah, there's a reference all viewers young and old can relate to. And unless replicas of this chair were going to be a special "Promotional Day for only 55 yrs and older Fans," I'd be willing to bet this anecdote wasn't hitting home with a big chunk of the older viewers, either. The best part--Jon Miller notes that he calls it the "Garry Maddox Chair." Interesting backstory, actually: "Not because that's what it's called. That's just what I like to call it. Since it's a chair that came from Garry Maddox." I think my ears started to bleed. --Morgan turning to Miller and saying, "I'm so glad you're my partner, because you're the only one who gets all these references I make." I guess no one told him there would be viewers from home. Millions of them in fact. --In Ortiz/Jeter split screen shot #38,462: I'm 100% surprised the shot was split 50-50 and not 80-20. Not only because of Ortiz's obscene Shrek-like frame, but because how do you confine the wonders of a god like that to just half a screen? That said, Morgan updates the viewing world on what the relationship between Jeter and Ortiz is. And by viewing world, I mean unborn fetuses, because those are the only organisms that aren't clued in yet. "So, here we have Jeter, one MVP candidate, and Ortiz, the great Red Sox slugger, also an MVP candidate." Yeah, that was necessary. All of it, right down to that little apostrophe clause for Ortiz. --Between innings, when NORMALLY the screen would show the 3 upcoming batters, ESPN decided to redirect the spotlight on a lesser known ballplayer. In fact, they created a new digital graphic to really make it POP. Surrounded by a flashing neon yellow bar (I'm not kidding, I swear to God): "UP 2ND-- ORTIZ" Ortiz was up 2nd. And the 2 chumps he was sandwiched between? Who knows. I'm beginning to think Ortiz is right, it must be difficult to hit in a line-up that for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist. --Some ridiculous claim about Johnny Damon having never batted against Timlin. They couldn't be further from the truth. They could TRY, but they would not be successful. Nothing like a tentative commitment to accuracy to make the broadcast that. Much. More. Excrutiating. Almost as bad as when they said no less than 4 times that the Yankees bought Mike Myers for the SOLE PURPOSE of pitching to Ortiz. Aka the only lefty in the AL apparently. --Jon Miller alerted us that Sunday's game hosted the most Yankee fans ever in the history of Yankee Stadium. That's quite a lofty claim. And by lofty, I mean egregiously nuts. --A one-hour tangent about ...I have no idea. Seriously. It was like being at work in the trying mid-afternoon hours of the day, having to write detailed copy on a clinical study in the constraints of a 45-minute deadline, and having a neighboring cubicle dweller chat vapidly on the phone the whole time. It was that same juxtaposition of extreme tension and icepick-to-my-brain inanity. Or better yet--when you're at the game or watching it, and there's someone with little to no interest in baseball sitting next to you. And they're convinced that since I can SEE the batter, I don't need to actually focus on anything. So they jabber away about their client meeting or how drunk they were or worse yet, ask questions. Listening to Morgan/Miller was just as bad at watching a game with the ex, who would say things like:
Why did that guy get to run to first if he struck out? --Morgan may or may not have made a shout-out to his grandmother during a 2-out at-bat. You know, just to punctuate the excitement of the game. But the chart topping Monument to Idiocy will forever be entrenched in the archives of my mind. Regarding Ortiz (of course): "Ortiz has said that he hasn't slept in 4 days over anxiety about holding his team together and the Yankees and the MVP race. You know, he was in the hospital not too long ago, and it's amazing that he came back and is doing as well as he is. Actually the reason Ortiz had to be hospitalized was because of a heart condition that is a result of... WAIT FOR IT! ...caring too much about his team." I was floored. And then I got bolted to that floor when that claim was followed up with, "After having to deal with all that, winning the MVP would just be that much more amazing." WHAT IS THIS, THE !@#$#% MAKE A WISH FOUNDATION??! I died a little inside last night. So now it's Monday. The Yankees lost 3 games. I lost 3 billion brain cells. We are all now dumber for having listened to that broadcast. I would have rather listened to Ashley Simpson announce that game. Because she knows more about baseball. And is more articulate. And evokes less of a penchant for homicide.
Well. That's that. I guess we all learned a valuable lesson about the mute button that day. That, and the story behind the Garry Maddox Chair.
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