No, this is not going to be another post about the shoddy umpiring or spittle analysis or any of the other on-field matters that have been going on in baseball since the playoffs began. No, we're on a TV blog, so I'm going to just talk about the things that have annoyed me about FOX's and TBS's coverage of the ALCS and the NLCS. In no particular order:
1. The Fidelity-sponsored Fox Trak. The pitching tracker, which shows if a pitch actually hit the strike zone or not, has been around for years. But, the flight of the ball has been to this point represented by a red streak and a dot. Now that Fidelity Investments is sponsoring the tracker, the red streak/dot combo has been replaced by a green streak/green arrow combo that mimics Fidelity's "stay on the line" series of ads. What financial guidance has to do with balls and strikes, I'll never know.
Perez Hilton says he got a black eye from The Black Eyed Peas.
According to shrill gossip blogger and almost celebrity Hilton, the manager of the Black Eyed Peas planted a "boom boom pow" in Perez's puss this weekend. That roar you almost heard was grateful, repressed applause coming out of Hollywood.
A faux journalist (nee: rumor mongering hack), Hilton jumped onto the TV viewers' radar last month when he served as a judge for the Miss USA Pageant and started a war of words with Miss California over her stance in gay marriage.
I think one of the weirdest things that happened on election night were the hologram thingies that CNN used. It was OK when they showed an image of a building, but it got really strange when Anderson Cooper interviewed will.i.am (almost as weird as me having to write someone's name as will.i.am). Cooper was standing there in the studio, looking off to the side, waiting for am (is that his last name? Or is he one name, like Twiggy?) to pop up in front of him like on Star Trek. The whole thing looked kinda cool but also kinda cheesy, and it was funny when Cooper introduced the interview by saying "we're joined now via hologram..."
12:23: Wolf Blitzer just reminded us that this is, in fact, an historic occasion. He also assures us that the coverage will continue. I, however, will not. All in all, CNN's coverage was adequate, but pretty boring. The reason I choose CNN over the other news channels is because of the personalities. Campbell Brown, Wolf Blitzer and Anderson Cooper usually find ways to engage and amuse me, but not tonight. Everyone was pretty straightforward and dry. What do they think this is, network news? If I wanted straightforward and dry, I'd watch Charlie Gibson.
But hey. At least this election is over. See you in four years! 12:19: Obama finished speaking a good five minutes ago, yet nobody has broken in with commentary. That's either an admirable show of restraint or a sign that the CNN anchors are all busy getting drunk.