The Mute Button vs. Tim McCarver

If you were watching the Cubs-Phillies game last Saturday on FOX, (and I was, when you don't have cable, you noisily devour any sporting event) you got to experience one of the most inexplicable phenomenon in recent history.

Tim McCarver, paid to explain the game of baseball to you.



If you imagine someone tuning in during the home half of the second inning without a great deal of knowledge about the game of baseball, here's what they were exposed to. With runners on first and third and one out, eighth-place hitter Carlos Ruiz doubled to center. Abraham Nunez tried to score from first on the play, and was thrown out by a light-year. Enter McCarver to explain the thoughts of the third-base coach.

"You have to send him," McCarver said. "Because the pitcher's coming up next."

Behind my TV, a poster of Jackie Robinson mysteriously started weeping.

I did not know that the third-base coach is required to check the on-deck circle before deciding whether to wave a runner in. I thought it was a less complex equation involving the likelihood that the guy running would get to the plate before the ball did. There was one out. If you don't send him, you've got runners on second and third with one out. (Freddy Garcia, the pitcher and next batter, doubled by the way. Eat it, Tim.). You don't run the guy into a sure out praying that the ball hits the mound or the center field accidentally throws it to third like in RBI Baseball.

This brings up an inherent problem, one that I've brought up before on this website.

These color analysts are expected to talk (a lot) during the course of a game. This means that roughly 80 percent of the time, they're speaking directly out of their hiney hole. Between talk radio, ESPN, ESPN2 and all that other sports garbage out there, discourse about sports has become whomever can yell the loudest or talk the most.


Colin Cowherd, world-class asshole

The problem is that people listen and take it seriously.

There's only one way to handle this, and that's mute the TV. Maybe you give them a half-inning, until the first TV timeout or the first segment of SportsCenter to somehow enlighten you. If they can enhance your experience with their words, leave it on. Most of the time, though, they don't. (Some do, like ESPN's Sunday Night radio duo of Dan Shulman and Dave Campbell. Others, like Jon Miller, pronounce every Latino name like he's in a mariachi band. Last time he did a game with Andres Galarraga, they had to hit control-alt-delete so he'd stop.)

You can tell from box score who played well (Carlos Boozer) and who didn't (Gordan Giricek. Forever, Gordan Giricek). You can watch the highlights to see Baron Davis de-flower Andrei Kirilenko.

You don't need some jerk yelling at you the whole time.