Sportscasting has somehow become the one bastion of journalism where it is completely acceptable at all times to make observations and statements of fact that have no basis in reality whatsoever.
Before Game 3 of the ALDS Friday night, Joe Morgan (among others) remarked that Yankee's Starter Randy Johnson is a "big game pitcher." For the record, Johnson's post-season record is 7-8, and his ERA in division series is well over 4.00. Those numbers are not particularly impressive, but because Johnson is a big-time superstar pitcher, he must also be a "big game pitcher," right? After Johnson gave up five runs in less than three innings, of course the talk was that this was a very unusual outing for Mr. Reliable.
An incident during Thursday's Cardinals/Padres game was even more wince-enducing. The Cards went to the bullpen for a left-hander late in the game, with Tony LaRussa going to Randy Flores instead of his usual guy, Ray King. Steve Phillips and the others in the ESPN booth spent about the next five minutes talking about how Ray King must have fallen out of favor with LaRussa, and how a manager can't worry about hurting a player's feelings. Then, after the game it was learned that Ray King's father died the night before the game. So I suppose that could have been the reason Tony LaRussa didn't ask him to pitch, but screw the facts, let's just do some more speculatin'!
No comments:
Post a Comment