Friday, July 11, 2008

Worldwide Teaser In Sports

Please allow me a short rant at game time:

I sat through 30 minutes of incessant Brett Favre coverage because ESPN teased the following at 5:57:
"Tim Kurkjian will be along to tell us how the Mets are to landing a superstar slugger ... "
All right, I'm hooked. Because if the Mets weren't close to anything, why would they tease it? Then at 6:00:
"Tim Kurkjian on how close are the Mets are to landing Matt Holliday!"
Now I didn't think the Mets had enough to get Holliday, but the World Wide leader in sports is actually pimpin' this, so: OMG! OMG! OMG! So I'm busy trolling the internet, googling Matt Holliday, looking up his home/road splits (Holliday's road numbers would be near the top of the Mets roster.)

So I sit through a half hour of Brett Favre this and Brett Favre that, because I want to hear about the Mets getting Matt Holliday, and where they are with that. 6:31, we get this:

"The Mets are not gonna get Matt Holliday. They just don't have what it takes in the minor league system to get him ... they are gonna look at a lower type player such as Xavier Nady of the Pirates but ... the Pirates are asking an awful lot for Xavier Nady so that doesn't seem logical, the more logical point is maybe Casey Blake ... "
In the words of Jeff Spicoli: "You dick!"

And I don't direct that at Kurkjian. I like Kurkjian. I direct that squarely at SportsCenter. Look, I know all about the concept of "teases" in television ... throwing a little nugget out there only to put it on near the end of the show to keep you watching. Fine. But usually, a newscast will tease a story, and then give you ... the story! SportsCenter teased: Matt Holliday. I did not get Matt Holliday. I did not get any hope of Matt Holliday. I got Casey Blake. I sat through a Brett Favre flogging for thirty minutes so that I could be told the answer to the question: How close are the Mets to getting Matt Holliday?" is a resounding: "Keep dreaming."

And before you ask the following: "C'mon, you didn't really think that the Mets had enough in the farm system to get Matt Holliday, did you?" No, of course I didn't think so ... until the worldwide leader in f***ing sports teased that it was a possibility! What would you have done?

Thirty minutes of my life ... GONE! For Casey Blake. Thanks a lot, SportsCenter. Oh, and by the way, would you mind not putting a big "Breaking News" panel on the screen at 6:58 only to repeat the news about Brett Favre that you gave us at 6:00? That's not "Breaking News". That's "Broken News"!

Thank you for indulging me. Be sure to read my next blog when I reveal just how close the earth is to getting hit by an asteroid!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Asteroid? Well, between you and me, the Mets better get on their horse and win the Series before 2013.