That boy who cried wolf? It turns out the kid had a point. And Chicken Little was just a little ahead of his time: The sky keeps falling!
Tuesday, at the start of the Marlins-Mets game on WOR Radio — “Jose Reyes Resurrection Night” — Howie Rose read an ad that leaned on a patriotic selling point. Peerless Boilers, Rose twice emphasized as per the ad copy, are “made in America.”
Then Rose informed us the national anthem was sponsored by Mutual of America insurance and identified the woman who had just “performed” it (although, yet again, it went unheard). By now, however, we’re not supposed to have a problem with that on Mets and Yankees broadcasts.
And then, after such an anything-for-a-buck sell, Rose, just doing his job, asked us to consider the right-from-wrong of Reyes’ return.
Soon, when Reyes led off the bottom of the first, Rose described what we could hear: a loud, sustained ovation.
This seemed both unsurprising and sad, the latest case of “but-he’s-our-bum,” especially given that Reyes’ post-suspension availability to return to the Mets in large part was predicated on assaulting his wife.
With just a police report in which she alleged he grabbed her by the throat, shoved her from a hotel bed, threw her into a sliding glass door, then beat her (she did not press charges), but no known video of the episode, a la Ray Rice’s hotel video, that could be imagined as worse or better than it was.
Late last month, the Royals’ Eric Hosmer was consistently booed at Citi Field for the audacity to have played both hard and well in Kansas City’s World Series sweep of the Mets. Now there’s a bum worth booing!
Not that booing Reyes was the only alternative. Had he been met with, say, silence, that would have delivered a strong message to Reyes and an even stronger one about the sensitivities and sensibilities of New York sports fans. They at least could have waited for his second at-bat to cheer him. Oh well, too late.
The next day, Wednesday, provided more evidence that our local teams’ broadcasters are suffering from serious disorders.
For example, just as Jim Dolan’s MSG Network was recently afflicted by advanced amnesia — ignoring the Jeremy Lin-led run in a retrospective of the few Knicks accomplishments since 2000 — SNY’s Mets booth now regularly suffers temporary blindness and laryngitis on behalf of Yoenis Cespedes’ failures to run to first base.
With the Mets up two in the eighth inning, bases empty and no out, a swinging strike three bounced in the dirt and rolled toward the Mets’ dugout. Cespedes just walked back to the dugout. Not only didn’t he force a throw to first, he made it extra convenient for the catcher to tag him out.
Gary Cohen briefly, flatly mentioned it, then he and Ron Darling went on to other matters. Rose, on the other hand, in a position to ignore what a radio audience couldn’t see, treated his audience squarely. He said what he saw: Cespedes, again, couldn’t be bothered to do the minimum, i.e., run to first.
This is a sorrowful trend from SNY’s booth that once spoke inexcusable Mets play as conspicuous truths.
The game ended — although not quite — with an infield grounder double play. Marlins manager Don Mattingly, now conditioned to an NFL-like “nothing-to-lose” mode, called for a replay review. The umps acquiesced, then upheld the DP call, thus the game officially ended several minutes after it ended. These days it often ain’t over until after it’s over.
At a time when MLB again acts — but only on a wish — to speed the pace of games, which is the official time of game? Is it when the last out is called, or when the replay rule determines that the last out was made?
Remarkably, Wednesday’s Yankees-White Sox game ended the same way — at least for 6½ minutes. Didi Gregorius grounded into a game-ending DP (a walk-off DP?), prompting Joe Girardi’s nothing-to-lose, replay challenge. Six minutes, 30 seconds later, replay determined that the runner heading to second was safe.
The game ended, 5-0, with the next batter, Chase Headley, who struck out swinging.
Drat! Nothing to review!
Of course, MLB, like the NFL, didn’t see any of this coming. But now that it’s here — now that the unintended, and what few-to-none wanted from replay rules is here — it’s here, and in a big way.
And Jose Reyes is back. And at $25 million per season, Cespedes still can’t be bothered to run to first, and he’s indulged by broadcasters who pretend they didn’t much see what we couldn’t miss. And the national anthem is replaced with a “made in America!” sponsor, thus the anthem, as opposed to the cheers for Reyes, is left unheard.
Chicken Little, you dog, you — you had it right.
Dykstra show an SNY softball
Not sure why SNY would be eager to produce a half-hour special on Lenny Dykstra, with Ron Darling interviewing the recent but doubtful author of what’s transparently loaded with sensational autobiographical crud. But given that Dykstra’s standing as a minimally credible human remains low, SNY and Darling allowed him to ensnare them in his misanthropy.
For example, Darling’s questions and Dykstra’s slurred answers about drug use — steroids and cocaine — were limited to Dykstra’s post-Mets years with the Phillies.
Those 1980s Mets teams on which Darling and Dykstra played didn’t have significant drug issues? That not only went unaddressed, but also it placed SNY and Darling in a position of playing selective ball with a criminally convicted, desperate-for-dough creep.
Distaste for Yanks’ TV, radio is eternal
The Postgame Report: Even the deceased can be a tough audience.
Sunday’s Asbury Park Press carried an obituary for Matthew Bartosh, a finance company executive from Manasquan, N.J., who died at 63. From the obit:
“Matt was an avid athlete, participating in many different sports. … He was a huge fan of the NY Yankees, but not their broadcast team.”
Michael Strahan, now with ABC’s “Good Morning America,” can no longer make commercial endorsements because “GMA” is part of ABC’s news division, which disallows its members from endorsing products. That’s odd, given that “GMA”’s “news” content is loaded with commercials for Disney goods, including ABC, ABC News and ESPN shows “not to be missed!”
Bob Costas and Doc Emrick call Friday’s Cubs-Pirates game on MLB Network at 7 p.m.
Get the feeling that if we hacked into NBA teams’ free-agent computer bases, then entered, oh, 7-foot-2 Rudo Sasnovich from the Serbian A League, our imaginary player would have been offered $7 million per for three years?