Baseball's House of Cards

So let me see if I've got this straight- in game 2, Tony LaRussa elected not to have Kenny Rogers tossed out of the game because he wanted to win "the right way." I assumed the right way meant winning the game because of the achievements of your players and not by some sort of freak incident that gives his team an advantage. But then when Joel Zumaya took a tailor-made double play ball in game 3 and threw it into left field, LaRussa was seen jumping up and down like he'd just won a free taco. Now I understand that errors are part of the game, but I would have expected that given his philosophy, LaRussa would have been somber- or at least stoic- while watching that play because the "right" outcome would have been for the Tigers to complete a 1-4-3 double play, leaving a runner on third with two outs. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, but watching LaRussa celebrate that error added some credence to the theory that the real reason LaRussa didn't push for Rogers to be tossed is that after years and years of managing players who have abused the rules (Canseco, McGwire....Pujols?), he's conditioned himself to look the other way when a player is trying to beat the system to gain an advantage.

Another theory is that LaRussa and MLB are trying to avoid creating yet another scandal in what has been a tarnished recent history for the league. Ratings for this World Series are at a record low, and Selig and co. are concerned about what adverse effects another controversy might have on the league. But my opinion is that the poor ratings have nothing to do with any after effects of the steroid scandal or any cheating allegations. Viewers love scandals. In fact if the series goes to a game 6 and Rogers pitches again, it will likely be the highest rated game of the series. Instead, I think there are two main forces at work here that are causing viewers to choose to watch Survivor and Dancing with the Stars instead of the World Series:

1. Major League Baseball, in cooperation with ESPN (and to a lesser degree Fox), spends all of the season establishing the Yankees and Red Sox as the storyline for the entire year. (To be fair, the Red Sox coverage ended after the 5 game sweep and morphed into all Yankees, all the time.) So much time and energy was spent discussing Schilling, Papelbon, Jeter, and of course, Arod, Arod, and more Arod that once both teams were eliminated from championship contention, the casual fan was left with no connection to the remaining teams. The Detroit Tigers were one of the great stories of the year, but I'll bet that less than a third of fans could name their starting outfield. If baseball is going to treat the other teams as an afterthought, then it should come as no surprise that viewers will do the same.

2. Fox's presentation of the World Series has been horrible. I'm going to do my best here to be fair in my criticisms. Joe Buck has a crazy schedule this time of year. He's the lead baseball and football guy for Fox, plus he does some pregame football work for the network. As a result, when listening to him call games, he just sounds tired. There is absolutely no energy coming from the booth, instead giving the vibe of a tedious mid-season game, rather than the World freakin Series. Even when a pivotal or spectacular play is made, Buck's voice conveys neither passion nor excitement, but rather a tone of "whew a double play- now I'm closer to my nap." I've mentioned it before, but I'm continually amazed at how much dead air* there is between pitches and at the conclusion of plays during a Buck broadcast. This is the time when a competent announcer (Jon Miller, Vin Scully, Dan Shulman) would be augmenting the live action by giving the viewer some backstory on the players in the game, speculating on the thought process in either dugout, or relating a story from a past World Series to give the present game some context. Buck rarely does any of these things. Perhaps Buck has been too affected by his football work, in which his job is just to call the play and then shut his mouth while Troy Aikman gives analysis of the just completed play. But a quality baseball two-man booth doesn't work that way (whether baseball really should have a two man booth is a separate issue). Yes, it's McCarver's job to give in-game analysis; but it should be delivered as a free-flowing discussion rather than two independent speakers (something Joe Morgan has some trouble grasping.) It's noteworthy that McCarver has easily outperformed Buck during these playoffs. I don't know if that says more about the job McCarver has done or how poor Buck has been.

The matchup between the Cardinals and Tigers may indeed be a good story. Unfortunately for the viewers, we know very little about our main characters and have an ineffective storyteller. It's no wonder so many people have chosen to seek entertainment elsewhere.

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(*Some, like reader JSon, have theorized that both Joe Buck and the Fox directors "let the fans tell the story," which would help explain the dead air and the frequent shots of the crowd during the telecast. But if that's Fox's strategy, they've made a terrible miscalculation. While the Cardinals fans may have the reputation for being some of the best in baseball, the fact is that it's 30 degrees in St. Louis right now. More often than not, when Fox went to a crowd shot, what you'd see is a sea of red with their hands in their pockets or under their arms, huddled together for warmth. The same scene was portrayed back in Detroit, tho instead of a sea of red, you saw huddled faces painted like either tigers or backup dancers in a sexually ambiguous Vegas show. The crowd shot is designed to reflect the drama on the field. Instead, I'm worried about the grandpa in field level getting frostbite. It doesn't draw me into the game. It makes me crave a cup of cocoa and click over to CSI: Miami for some warmth.)