Postlude to the Red Sox
I won't add to the tidal waves of pleasure and puffery that surround and now seem to overwhelm the Red Sox World Series victory.
No, I am stuck on the the approach that TV has taken to the game.
The Fox Network coverage of the playoffs and World Series has followed a trend, well underway now for years, to an almost unwatchable state. Instead of observing the game in all its glories of time, space, position, and the seemingly infinite possibilities of the moment, we are treated to extreme close-ups of baseball players, managers, and fans. It is frequently impossible to see how the defense is arrayed on the field or follow how players are maneuvering while the ball is hit to another part of the field. No, now we have interminable close-ups of managers and coaches spitting, drooling, chomping, and picking their noses.
This is not good. Outside of an ongoing amazement at how much spitting goes on in the dugout and on the field, the TV coverage is inhibiting understanding and enjoying the game. Even the play-by-play announcers have forgotten their job of describing what is going on during the game. Rather we are treated to a bottomless pit of meaningless "statistics" and personal puff pieces about the players. Only Tim McCarver occasionally tossed in an enlightening observation about what was actually happening on the field.
Looking back over the last five or six years, I can see how this developed as an extension of the technological capability for such closeups merged with the media machinery focused on marketing images of players, not the game.
No, I am stuck on the the approach that TV has taken to the game.
The Fox Network coverage of the playoffs and World Series has followed a trend, well underway now for years, to an almost unwatchable state. Instead of observing the game in all its glories of time, space, position, and the seemingly infinite possibilities of the moment, we are treated to extreme close-ups of baseball players, managers, and fans. It is frequently impossible to see how the defense is arrayed on the field or follow how players are maneuvering while the ball is hit to another part of the field. No, now we have interminable close-ups of managers and coaches spitting, drooling, chomping, and picking their noses.
This is not good. Outside of an ongoing amazement at how much spitting goes on in the dugout and on the field, the TV coverage is inhibiting understanding and enjoying the game. Even the play-by-play announcers have forgotten their job of describing what is going on during the game. Rather we are treated to a bottomless pit of meaningless "statistics" and personal puff pieces about the players. Only Tim McCarver occasionally tossed in an enlightening observation about what was actually happening on the field.
Looking back over the last five or six years, I can see how this developed as an extension of the technological capability for such closeups merged with the media machinery focused on marketing images of players, not the game.
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