Fox has been carrying postseason baseball for more than a decade, and it will have postseason baseball until at least 2013.
Maybe by then Fox will figure it out. But I doubt it. It took Fox all those years to dump Steve Lyons, whose main qualification for a commentary job was dropping trou during a game.
Lyons was fired Friday for “jokingly” suggesting that that fellow commentator Lou Piniella was a wallet thief because he’s Hispanic — just the latest in a series of examples of lack of taste and judgment.
But the best reason for dismissing Lyons is that he really adds no information to a broadcast.
Which is fine with Fox. It’s not really interested in baseball. The broadcasts are about whooshing sound effects and buried cameras, three-minute commercial breaks and endless promos.
The commentary teeters between the banal (guest commentator Luis Gonzalez noted Saturday after the St. Louis Cardinals led 5-0 that this wasn’t the start the New York Mets wanted) and the inane (the entire booth rapping Oakland for not using the hit-and-run with two outs and the Detroit pitcher walking three men in a row).
It is possible for a baseball commentator to be both accessible and knowledgeable. Steve Stone does it; I’ve listened to him for 22 years and still pick up things.
Beyond that, the Fox boys have a basic problem of accuracy.
For example: Thom Brennaman and Chris Myers repeatedly said, as the Tigers celebrated their series win Saturday, that Brandon Inge was the only player left from the 119-loss Detroit team of 2003.
Well, yeah, unless you count Jeremy Bonderman, Wilfredo Ledezma, Nate Robertson, Fernando Rodney, Jamie Walker, Omar Infante, Ramon Santiago and Craig Monroe, all of whom played in the ALCS for Detroit and all of whom were on the Tigers’ opening day roster in 2003. Then there’s Mike Maroth, still a member of the team but not on the LCS roster.
In fact, the 2006 Tigers had more players from the woeful 2003 team on their playoff roster than the 2006 Twins retained from their 2003 division champs.
That’s why there’s such joy to the Tigers’ celebrations. It’s not just the fans who suffered through the losing; fully a third of the players did too.
The Detroit turnaround is impressive enough. Fox doesn’t have to make stuff up to make the story compelling.
But .. oh, yeah, it’s Fox. It doesn’t trust the game; we can’t trust it.
Re-inventing Kenny Rogers
Nobody familiar with the career of Kenny Rogers could have seen this coming. Yes, his 207 -139 career won-lost mark gives him a winning percentage (.598) far superior to that of at least a half-dozen Hall of Fame inductees.
But he’s also the guy who, in three postseason starts for the 1996 Yankees, was shelled in each, compiling a 14.14 ERA, and who walked home the series-clinching run while working for the Mets in the 1999 NLCS.
The word on him has long been: Can’t handle pressure. Fades in the second half. A nibbler afraid to throw strikes. Chokes in big games.
All of which were true once and appear to be false now.
Rogers has never thrown hard. His strikeout-to-walk ratios have never been impressive, and his strikeout rate has never been much more than adequate.
And those ratios — the “leading indicator” stats — have deteriorated in the last two years. This year, in 204 innings, he walked 62 (actually fairly low for him) and struck out 99. In August and September, the strikeout rate plummeted.
But the home runs allowed also dried up.
At the age of 41, Rogers appears to have become a ground ball specialist.
Consider this: In 2003, in his one season with Minnesota, Rogers got 1.13 ground ball outs for every fly ball out. This year, it was 1.64 — the sixth highest ratio in the American League. The average pitcher, by the way, gets 1.20 grounders for every air out.
Even more oddly: In October, Rogers became a strikeout ace, with 14 Ks (and four walks) in 15 playoff innings — more than he had in his last six regular season starts combined. AND he’s gotten 17 GB to nine FB. Nice combination: Strikeouts and ground balls.
The radar gun readings in his start against the Yankees had him hitting 94 mph, which strains credulity. (The televised gun readings appear to be another Fox exaggeration; if Jason Grilli was throwing 99-mph sinkers Saturday, my beagle’s a .300 hitter.)
Kenny Rogers, power pitcher. Now that’s a surprise.
Edward Thoma is a Free Press staff writer. He can be called at 344-6377 or e-mailed at ethoma@mankato-freepress.com.
