Wednesday, September 09, 2009
Mets Silent 6th
Interesting experiment during the Mets TV broadcast last night, home game with the Marlins. There were no announcers at all for the entire 6th inning. None except the Citi Field batter introductions. TV viewers got all information from the game itself, the graphics, & watching the ump call balls & strikes. The camera showed plenty of crowd shots, vendors, individuals, kids, the dugouts. One fan was playing with Blackberry, another doing crossword puzzle. All ambien sound including an annoying cowbell tapping out the Let go Mets rhythm.
The top of the inning ended with Mets somehow converting an errant throw from right field missing the cutoff man & slipping past the catcher into a tag out at the plate. Strange play, but required no explanation from Ron Darling.
Carlos Beltran, on the DL since June & much missed, hit a double in the bottom of the inning & was stranded on second base.
I liked Silent 6th, although half-an-inning would be fine. A long rally, a three run homer, a bad error call for talk.
I'm a fan of radio baseball broadcasts, the rhythms of play-by-play & commentary interspersed with product tags & short commercials. I can compare the styles, weaknesses & strengths of Yankees & Mets radio booths. There's far too much gab on TV considering how little needs to be described, they don't have to create pictures. The Mets crew is very good, too many of them at times, no where near annoying as Fox & ESPN TV broadcasts that can hardly stay focused on the game itself, there's so much extraneous information, & which lack the committment of excitable partisan announcers who travel with the teams.
The Silent 6th is nice touch. Even better is when baseball announcers understand there's no "dead air" during a game, & their art & craft includes knowing how & when to let the ball park speak for itself.
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be." Thomas Jefferson
The top of the inning ended with Mets somehow converting an errant throw from right field missing the cutoff man & slipping past the catcher into a tag out at the plate. Strange play, but required no explanation from Ron Darling.
Carlos Beltran, on the DL since June & much missed, hit a double in the bottom of the inning & was stranded on second base.
I liked Silent 6th, although half-an-inning would be fine. A long rally, a three run homer, a bad error call for talk.
I'm a fan of radio baseball broadcasts, the rhythms of play-by-play & commentary interspersed with product tags & short commercials. I can compare the styles, weaknesses & strengths of Yankees & Mets radio booths. There's far too much gab on TV considering how little needs to be described, they don't have to create pictures. The Mets crew is very good, too many of them at times, no where near annoying as Fox & ESPN TV broadcasts that can hardly stay focused on the game itself, there's so much extraneous information, & which lack the committment of excitable partisan announcers who travel with the teams.
The Silent 6th is nice touch. Even better is when baseball announcers understand there's no "dead air" during a game, & their art & craft includes knowing how & when to let the ball park speak for itself.
