SALON's King Kaufman reviews Fox' coverage and
criticizes the net for "the constant cutting to irrelevant
shots, and the inept use of sound." Kaufman: "I know what
teenagers in Mets hats biting their nails looks like. What
I don't know is what's happening on the field." On the
dugout shots, Kaufman writes, "Here's Joe Torre staring
straight ahead with no expression on his face. And here's
Joe Torre staring straight ahead with no expression on his
face. And here, just in case you were wondering what that
crazy Joe Torre's been getting up to lately." As far as the
announcing team, Kaufman calls Tim McCarver "smart," but he
"does have an annoying way of talking too loud and r-e-a-l-
l-y s-l-o-w-l-y, as though we were all idiots, which, to be
fair, a frightening number of us are." He calls Joe Buck
"solid, dull and inoffensive," while Keith Olbermann is
"vastly overrated," and his "snide goofing comes across as
not having the proper respect for the event" (SALON, 10/26).
In N.Y., Richard Sandomir writes that Fox "speaks baseball
in the language of the closeup," and in Game Three alone,
the network showed 805 closeups. Part of the philosophy is
to "avoid [the] long, static," or even "the classic
establishing shot of the diamond." Fox Sports VP/Media
Relations Lou D'Ermilio: "We think that pullback shot is
boring. We want to quicken the pace." Sandomir: "At their
best, closeups illuminate action and heighten tension, but
you have to wonder if 73 closeups during the Mets' half of
the sixth inning could have been reduced for more long
views" (N.Y. TIMES, 10/26). On Long Island, Allen St. John
writes, "There's nothing more excessive -- and at times more
wretched -- than Fox's television coverage of the games. ...
While the visual onslaught is the biggest problem, the
commentary isn't much better" (NEWSDAY, 10/26).
DID YOU SEE THAT? Mets P Glendon Rusch, on the media
attention in the World Series: "Obviously you guys are the
ones who bring this game out to the fans and to the people
at home watching on TV." Rusch, on how the media handled
the Rogers Clemens-Mike Piazza bat-throwing incident: "I
think it was over-hyped a little bit. I think it became a
focal point rather than the whole World Series between us
and the Yankees being a focal point" (ESPN, 10/25).
