From: jjd@TEAK.CRAY.COM (Jeff Drummond)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Mediots (was Value of Stats)
Date: 30 Jul 92 21:31:13 GMT

Organization: Cray Research, Inc.
Summary: Media spelled backwards is "Aid 'em"

In article <1992Jul30.022226.15851@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca> 91287041@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca (roger maynard) writes:
>
>I can understand your natural envy of - and proportionate enmity towards - 
>those who are both photogenic and capable of simple elocution.  You should
>understand, however, that not all of us, not even all who are employed in 
>the media, are unprincipled idiots.  Unfortunately the one dimensional shills
>the Blue Jays employ in their quest for 4 million do fit your description.
>(Chevrier, Hutton, Olver, Hughson, Martinez).  The only one of these who has
>any character at all is Olver who has become a legendary parody of all that
>can be aggravating about the "homer".  Fortunately he is seldom heard these
>days.  

I don't think anyone has accused the media of being unprincipled idiots.
They seem principled with respect to their objectives (selling papers and
air time) and are knowledgable in their craft (what sells papers and air
time).  I find that newspapers, for example, are very good in providing
factual information like stock quotes, weather reports, box scores and
baseball statistics.  It is only when they try to interpret this information
that I have difficulty believing them.  As long as I avoid the editorial
pages and the columnists, I'm more than satisfied with my morning paper.

TV, on the hand, doesn't have time to give much in the way of factual
information at all (I'd love it if they'd put up box scores or even line
scores, but they'd have to devote too much air time to do it).  Instead,
we get the final score and (maybe) a shot of a `key' hit or strikeout.
Even an ESPN-type sports recap shows only snippets of the games.  You get
the flavor, but not much substance.  And they don't have enough time to do
any interpretation, even assuming they had something intelligent to say.

[ Other stuff deleted ]

>Well certainly the media here has had a real impact with the Blue Jays.  Over
>50,000 people go to EVERY game.  And I can't stand any of the TV announcers.

I don't understand what you're trying to say.  Are the TV announcers so
bad that everyone's going to the game to avoid the TV coverage?  Or are
you claiming that the media is pumping up the fan interest?

I think the Jays have a good enough team to generate their own fan interest.
And their new stadium isn't hurting attendance either.  I think the media
can reflect the fan interest, but I don't believe it can generate it.

My experience here in the Twin Cities is that the media are generally
the last ones on the bandwagon.  They pretty much ignored the Twins in '87
until they'd all but clinched the division and then hyped them for all it
was worth.  They gave a lot of coverage to the '88 Twins until it looked
like they weren't going to repeat (and the Football preseason started).
The coverage then remained pretty basic until last year.

There's a wierd sort of synergism (parasitism?) between the media and
the Twins in this town.  The media hypes the Twins something fierce when
they're doing well (defined as having made it to post-season play this
year or last year).  The rest of the time they pretty much ignore the
team ("Well, the Twins lost another one today by a score of 7 to 4.  And
in the Bologna Bikini Bocce Ball Finals...").

>                                 And I can't stand any of the TV announcers.
>On the radio Tom Cheek ain't bad but Jerry "Swing" Howarth is the quintessential
>weasel.  But Kubek wasn't bad when he was here.  Early Wynn was pretty slow but
>harmless.  Bruce Dowbiggin on CBC news is OK.  Most of them are pretty bad
>but some are OK so it IS unfair to criticize them generally.  Besides, the 
>best criticisms are specific anyway.

Kirsch has already described the barren state of the print media in the
Twin Cities.  The Broadcast media, I'm afraid, is worse.  And as far as
the game announcers go, it's a mixed bag.  Herb Carneal usually does the
radio (WCCO--The Big Brother Station) play-by-play.  He's pretty good,
but he's saddled with either Jeff "the wonder dog" Robinson, or worse: John
"WAY BACK, WAY BACK, TOUCH 'EM ALL, KIRBY PUCK--no, he caught it" Gordon.

On the TV side, it's either Robinson or Gordon, with Jim Kaat doing color
commentary.  Kaat is a former player and sometimes has something intelligent
to say; although since he started doing broadcasts for the big networks,
he's began to pick up some cliches.  Occasionally, when Kaat is off doing
a network game or when Twins-owner Carl Pohlad loses $1M on one of his bank
deals and has a bad day, we get treated to Robinson and Gordon.  That's
when my wife has to hide the sharp knives and razor blades.

>-- 
>roger maynard                    
>91287041@ramsey.cs.laurentian.ca

-Jeff    jjd@cray.com
--
"A forfeit in time, saves nine." -Benjamin Franklin in "Poor Richard's
Baseball Almanac"