[TV orNotTV] World Series Shits to Detroit

[PGage]

Deadspin has a story up about how the headline in the subject header made into many news webpages today, apparently the result of a single misspelling from a single newsfeed - Sports Network (see: http://deadspin.com/5955468/world-series-shits-to-detroit-declares-chicago-tribune-fox-news-et-al).

Deadspin displays its own flaws as a news source, as they seem to care more about practicing their sophomore level creative writing skills than just reporting and explaining what happened, but they finally get to it in what I presume is the third paragraph:

"... journalism sites that plugged into a news feed (such as the Sports Network, it appears) and replicate, without scrutiny, very obvious, glaring cusses in headlines, and leave them up for good stretches after Twitter called them out, because they'd abdicated the simple task of proofreading, instead leaving everyone in America to laugh at them for publishing the word "shits" when they meant to say, "Giants try to go up 3-0 on Tigers, as World Series shifts to Detroit."

Mistakes happen, but in cases like this the public needs to hold each specific news operation accountable for it, and not let them just pawn it off on the source. If you are going to cut and paste, then you are responsible for what you paste.

[Kevin M.]

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 1:03 PM, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

> "shits" when they meant to say, "Giants try to go up 3-0 on Tigers, as World
> Series shifts to Detroit."
>
> Mistakes happen, but in cases like this the public needs to hold each
> specific news operation accountable for it, and not let them just pawn it
> off on the source. If you are going to cut and paste, then you are
> responsible for what you paste.

Anyone who cuts and pastes is not, by definition, a news gathering
organization. Such errors help us to identify who isn't running a news
outlet. Makes it easier to ignore them as credible sources of
information.


--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

[PGage]

Word. 

[Michael]

Considering the tepid ratings, I'm not so certain that the FOX FUX
behind the headline didn't intend what was published. And by the
way... GO GIANTS!

On Oct 27, 1:22 pm, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

[PGage]

On Sat, Oct 27, 2012 at 4:18 PM, Michael <miketh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Considering the tepid ratings, I'm not so certain that the FOX FUX
behind the headline didn't intend what was published. And by the
way... GO GIANTS!

If there is not a team from New York or Boston (or, for Baseball on Fox, St Louis qualifies as an honorary east coast team) then the national media refuses to pay the World Series much attention. Their loss. This post-season has driven the final nail in any expectation I might once have had of west coast baseball getting anything close to minimum respect. Who needs them? As long as they put the games on television in Northern California, they can go back to double-issues of the X-Factor for the rest of the country (or, like espn.com did the day after Game 1, they can show reruns of the Cardinals in last year's Series for the rest of the nation).

What the rest of the country is missing is one hell of a post-season story in both the Tigers and the Giants (if the Giants win the WS it may be the best story in the history of MLB), and a hell of a game 2 that was scoreless after 6.5 innings, 1-0 after 7.5, and ended 2-0.

[Dave Sikula]

If I may be so bold, I'd say this is less "the best story in the history of MLB" than it is the most underreportedupon. Anyone who looks at this team and doesn't see the most roided-up baseball squad since, oh, the 2010 Giants isn't looking very hard or being purposefully ignorant.

There's a Pulitzer waiting out there for some enterprising reporter who wants to dig into the story of how doping has far outsurpassed the ability of the authorities to detect it and how Selig, MLB, and the other leagues and players' associations look the other way when this kind of stuff happens.

--Dave Sikula

[PGage]

On Sun, Oct 28, 2012 at 2:04 PM, Dave Sikula <dsi...@yahoo.com> wrote:

If I may be so bold, I'd say this is less "the best story in the history of MLB" than it is the most underreportedupon. Anyone who looks at this team and doesn't see the most roided-up baseball squad since, oh, the 2010 Giants isn't looking very hard or being purposefully ignorant.

There's a Pulitzer waiting out there for some enterprising reporter who wants to dig into the story of how doping has far outsurpassed the ability of the authorities to detect it and how Selig, MLB, and the other leagues and players' associations look the other way when this kind of stuff happens.

Wow - what evidence do you have to support, or even suggest, that kind of serious charge (besides Hunter Pence's bug eyes)? 

[Dave Sikula]

Just look at the numbers, my friend. Career banjo hitters who did nothing before or after joining the Giants suddenly becoming world beaters. I'm not saying they're the only PED-abusers, but they are the most obvious,

--Dave Sikula

[PGage]

On Mon, Oct 29, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Dave Sikula <dsi...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Just look at the numbers, my friend. Career banjo hitters who did nothing before or after joining the Giants suddenly becoming world beaters. I'm not saying they're the only PED-abusers, but they are the most obvious,

I see. I didn't realize you had such iron-clad proof.

I guess Scutaro started mainlining roids when he got traded to the Giants on July 27 to pump up his batting average.

[Kevin M.]

If it's good enough for Lance Armstrong, it's good enough for me!

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--
Kevin M. (RPCV)

[Dave Sikula]

Not to beat a dead horse, but

Scutaro with Colorado: .271/.324/.361 OPS .684 OPS+73, with SF: .362/.385/.473 OPS .859 OPS+145

So, yeah; I guess he did.

--Dave Sikula

[PGage]

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 11:23 AM, Dave Sikula <dsi...@yahoo.com> wrote:

Not to beat a dead horse, but

Scutaro with Colorado: .271/.324/.361 OPS .684 OPS+73, with SF: .362/.385/.473 OPS .859 OPS+145

So, yeah; I guess he did.

I will assume you have completed similar comparisons for the top 3 hitters on all other playoff teams and found no other similar improvements.

[Michael]

Wow, Someone (perhaps a Yankees or Dodgers fan) is really jumping
to some amazing and specious conclusions. PEDs are an MLB-wide
problem, but, in general, the Giants' averages suggest that Melky was
the only abuser. Giants catcher Buster Posey won the 2012
batting title with the highest average in baseball, but he's hardly
'roided-up. In fact, during Posey's so-far brief life, the only
Armstrong he's been like is Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy. His
average in the post-season was .200, and other than Pablo and Buster
hitting a few HRs, the Giants were mostly cobbling together runs in
small-ball fashion and winning with great pitching on their way to the
title. By the way, I'd venture to say that the only thing Panda is
jacked up on is pie. Tom Verducci of SI picked the Giants to win the
Series, and while they were still in the process of sweeping the
Detroit Tigers in the World Series, he suggested that San Francisco's
commemorative championship DVD should be used as an instructional
video for anyone interested in learning how to play the game the right
way. This is an incredibly colorful, charismatic, dedicated team that
has played the past season with genuine joy and camaraderie. And I
don't expect them to pull a disappearing act for the benefit of the
East Coast-skewed touts at ESPN, Fox Sports and SI and the other media
whiners.

On Oct 30, 6:17 pm, PGage <pga...@gmail.com> wrote:

[PGage]

On Tue, Oct 30, 2012 at 10:28 PM, Michael <miketh...@gmail.com> wrote:

Wow, Someone (perhaps a Yankees or Dodgers fan) is really jumping to
some amazing and specious conclusions. PEDs are an MLB-wide problem,

but the team average for the Giants suggests that Melky was the only
abuser. (SNIP)

I think we are dealing with some predictable Dodger-Fan hate, which is why my replies have been so brief and restrained. I have said much less reasonable things in the wake of Dodger World Series victories (and if I have to see that Gibson HR one more time my head might just explode).

But, to get back to my original, more TV-related point, the Giants really have been overlooked by the national media this year, and especially Fox Sports. By any objective standard, this team is on the short list of best NL World Series teams in the history of MLB.

The only other time a World Series winner came back from two consecutive three game to one deficits, winning 6 elimination games in a row, was the 1985 KC Royals; it has never been done by an NL team. The last time an NL team shut out an AL team twice in a row in the World Series was 1919 (and their opponent that year got paid to lose their games). They are only the second National League team to ever allow 1 run or less in three consecutive World Series games (the first was 107 years ago). This was arguably the best team pitching performance by a NL team ever. And only five other teams in the history of National League have ever won two World Series in three years (Cubs in 1907-08; NY Giants in 1921-22; Cardinals (1942-44; 44-46); LA Dodgers (1963-65); Reds (1975-76); SF Giants (2010-12). So this is one of the elite WS teams in NL history, displaying probably the most dominating pitching performance in NL history, after mounting the most dramatic and extreme comeback in NL post-season history, twice.

We know Dave was just indulging his inner Blue (I seem to recall that Dave lives in NoCal, but is still a Dodger fan, perhaps having grown up down there, as did I), because the Giants hit the fewest home runs in the NL this season, and won their division, league and World Series with a combination of pitching, defense and great managing. We did have two players suspended for PEDs this year, but the Giants real run began when Melky left the team (and they could have put him on the post-season roster if they wanted to, since his 50 game suspension was over, but they chose not to). I guess the most you could say is that the roids helped us get the home field advantage, given Melky's role in winning the All-Star game - but as it turned out we hardly need it.

Having said all that, I do agree with the point that MLB has not yet completely put the Selig-Era behind it yet, and needs to double-down on the consequences for violations. Even a 50 game suspension seems worth it to a lot of guys, given the rewards that come with MLB success - especially players who come from baseball-crazy but desperately poor areas in Latin America. I think maybe something like a 162 game suspension would be appropriate for a first offense, 324 for a second offense, and a third strike should mean they are out, for good. And they need to test more often, less predictably, and more extensively.

  

[Dave Sikula]

Suffice it to say, I disagree, but that's what makes baseball.

Also, I am all for medically supervised and regulated PEDs, given the multiple blurred lines that surgery, training techniques, and various supplements have created.

That said, I stand by my original point that the leagues and players associations are in utter denial about the realities of usage and detection.

--Dave Sikula

[JW]

> But, to get back to my original, more TV-related point, the Giants really
> have been overlooked by the national media this year, and especially Fox
> Sports. By any objective standard, this team is on the short list of best
> NL World Series teams in the history of MLB.

Uh, no. Even if I felt like doing the research, most of this list
wouldn't be interested, but I think the Giants just got hot enough at
the right time.

> The only other time a World Series winner came back from
> two consecutive three game to one deficits, winning 6 elimination games in
> a row, was the 1985 KC Royals; it has never been done by an NL team.

Not coincidentally, 1985 was the first season a team could come back
from two 3-1 deficits. From 1969-84, the LCS were best-of-5, and there
were only the occasional one or three game tiebreakers before that.

> ... And only five other teams in the history of National League have ever

> won two World Series in three years (Cubs in 1907-08; NY Giants in
> 1921-22; Cardinals (1942-44; 44-46); LA Dodgers (1963-65); Reds (1975-76);
> SF Giants (2010-12).

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that the 21st century Giants
are the only one of those teams who had one starting position player
in common between their two champions. That's not exactly a
juggernaut. And while I may look back in a few years and appreciate
the pitching more, right now I'm not convinced it's better than
Philly's, or Detroit's.

Please don't misunderstand. The Giants earned their championship, and
you have every right to celebrate it. But when we talk about great
teams of all time, I don't think these Giants are in the discussion.

TV-related, I'm still impressed by how bad a job Fox manages to do
after all these years. They're so impressed by their technical
capabilities that they refuse to consider that most of those
capabilities add nothing to the broadcast. For every useful shot of
Pence's bat breaking and hitting the ball again, there are too many
replays of routine pitches or shots of uninteresting signs in the
stands.

[PGage]

On Wed, Oct 31, 2012 at 2:59 AM, JW <redb...@gmail.com> wrote:

TV-related, I'm still impressed by how bad a job Fox manages to do
after all these years. They're so impressed by their technical
capabilities that they refuse to consider that most of those
capabilities add nothing to the broadcast. For every useful shot of
Pence's bat breaking and hitting the ball again, there are too many
replays of routine pitches or shots of uninteresting signs in the
stands. 

 

I think I have satisfied my passionate Giants fandom enough for this cycle, so I can now concentrate on the list-relevant issue, and I think you have hit it right on the head. The shot of Pence's bat was really phenomenal, and an excellent example of how cutting edge technology can significantly enhance the experience of a game on television (I'm sure the folks at the ballpark had no idea what had happened on that play). But that is no reason to use that camera - or all of the other gee-whiz gizmos they have, so promiscuouly. I can live with a few vanity shots, like the ones that captured each individual rain drop falling, and a few shots that show us the amazing torque major league pitchers get from their arms, but really, less is so much more. Even Joe Buck had to laugh at Fox producers insisting on showing a super slo mo replay between pitches that had absolutely no chance of finishing before the next pitch.

 

I am a little more ambivalent about another development - live interviews of players from the dugouts during the action of the game. My instinct is to be against this, and I have been critical of it in the past. But I have to admit there were several instances this post-season when it was kind of cool - especially the interviews with Verlander, and one with Romo. OTOH, there were several instances when Fox stayed with the live player interviews without breaking into to describe rather key developments on the field. I wonder why it doesn't make more sense to have 60 second interviews between innings, framed by lots of advertisements, as a way of keeping audience from fast-forwarding, or peeing, during regular commercials? If they think we can pay attention to the game while listening to the interviews, why can't we pay attention to the commercials why listening to the interviews?