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Out of Left Field |
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is Better on the Tube |
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of TheColumnists.com
Some notes of an armchair spectator, a connoiseur
of pro football on the tube, or Why would anybody ever want to
go out to see a pro football game at a stadium when it is so
much more fun to enjoy it in all its cockamamie forms on television?
I am a fan of Locke Peterseim and his assitant Dave Ihlenfeld.
They are the crack editors at the Britannica Encyclopedia who
have given substance to the ramblings of comic Dennis Miller,
the idiot savant of Monday Night Football telecasts.
Miller makes mumbling illusions to esoterica that have little
to do with the fooball action and are hard to hear. He comes
off as a prince of prattle. But Peterseim and Ihlenfelt take
note of his comments and use them as a springboard to enlighten
loyalists who check out the ESPN.com website the days after each
week’s game.
For example, assuming you could make out Miller’s mouthings--which
is a chore in itself and is best tuned out--you would have heard
Miller comment recently about a situation in which a measurement
showed Tampa missed a first down by half an inch. He said, “All
right they need an angstrom.”
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comes off as the Prince of Prattle. |
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At the moment this, if heard, would go in one ear and out the other. But ah, the next day, the Britannica boys rewarded us with this: “Named after the 19th-century Swedish physicist Anders Jones Angstrom, the angstrom is used to measure the wavelengths of light, the diameter of molecules, and the thickness of films on liquids.”
For all of Miller’s erudition, his comments have so little bearing on the action at the time, they are irrelevant to viewers of the game. But along come the Britannica Boys and we are enriched and tickled by Miller’s esoterica.
Miller ranges far and wide with his asides--last week he made references to Wilt Chamberlain, Scooby Doo, [the volcano] Krakatoa and the Peter Principle. He even made a booboo referring to the “Tasmanian Dervish,” when he should have said “Tasmanian Devil.” But no matter, the Britannicans provided us with the poop on Tasmanian Devils and whirling dervishes.
Miller’s presence often leads main man Al Michaels to get caught in “can-you-top-this” futility. No matter a joke, good or bad, by Miller or third man Dan Fouts, Michaels rarely lets well-enough alone and tries, usually lamely, for a topper.
There is, as well, an inside-joke mentality in which the boys seem to be having a good time, but at the expense of the viewer. On a punt that kept rolling in the Tampa-St. Louis game Miller said it was like “the golf cart path at Bel Air.” Michaels, always ready with a quip, said, “I know that shot.” They were talking, I surmise, about a golf ball hitting a macadam path and continuing to roll at a course in the Los Angeles area.
Boys will be boys.
* * *
There ought to be some award worthy of an Oscar for Indianapolis
coach Jim Mora’s performance berating his team after it
had been whipped by the San Francisco Forty Niners, 40-21 recently.
In the annals of gridiana it is doubtful that any coach unloaded
so vehemently and entertainingly on his team. ESPN Sports Center
producer Sean Fitzgerald embellished Mora’s performance
by combining Mora’s anguished comments from two of his post-game
appearances and letting it rip into one gorgeous segment.
This is Mora as fast as I could put the comments together from
Sports Center’s report:
“We got our ass totally kicked.”
“We couldn’t do diddley-poo offensively.”
“We sucked, that was a disgraceful performance.”
“We threw that game, we gave it away.”
“We gave them the friggin game.”
“Holy crap, I don’t know who we think we are when we
do things like that.”
“That was a horse…. performance in the second half,
horse….”
“That was pitiful, absolutely pitiful to perform like that.”
“It sucked, it stunk.”
“Playoffs? Don’t talk about playoffs. Are you kidding
me? I just hope we can win a game.”
I wonder how Mora would behave if he were really miffed.
* * *
A map of the New York metropolitan area ought to be a required
graphic on any telecast coming out of New Jersey’s Meadowlands
for Giants or Jets home games. A game may be in New Jersey, but
the television people show images of recognizable New York City
scenes like Times Square. The Giants and Jets long ago sold the
fabrication that playing in New Jersey was playing in the New
York metroplitan area, so we have the sham of the Giants and
Jets, who play across the Hudson River in New Jersey, having
the New York label because the league thinks there is more cache
to New York. Television buys this.
Note: the contending team in the east in the National Basketball
Association these days is the Nets, the New Jersey Nets.
* * *
In the old days when a referee threw a rag on the field to denote
a penalty, the public called it a “handkerchief.” In
this image-conscious age, it is called, both by the officials
and on TV, “a flag.” Kudos to any announcer, say I,
who calls it a “handkerchief,” or pray tell, a “hankie,”
or for the yiddishists, “a schmata.”
* * *
Add reasons pro football is better on TV than in the stadium:
It is a sweet delight on a bitter cold day in the midwest and
northeast to be warm and toasty at home through an interminable
delay by the officials dithering on an instant replay protest
while spectators in the stadium are freezing their tootsies off.
* * *
Lines I liked: Paul Maguire saying of baby faced quarterback
Matt Hasselbeck: “My five-year-old grandson looks older
than Matt Hasselbeck.”….Terry Bradshaw said, after
James Brown, a Harvard alumnus, facetiously extolled unbeaten
Harvard as the best team in the country: “Yes, and next
week they are playing Howie Long’s high school team.”
* * *
It’s awfully modest, isn’t it, for Fox Network to call
its pre-game show “America’s No. 1 pre-game show.”?
Actually, the pre-game shows of Fox, CBS and ESPN are all contenders
for the “Highest IQ Award,”-- IQ standing for Irritation
Quotient. The forced hilarity and frenetic attempts to hold viewers
are reasons all but the hard-nose fanatics wait for the actual
start of games to turn on the set. And ABC’s pseudo-macho
introductions to its Monday Night games are so transparent as
to be laughable.
* * *
And, when ABC showed St. Louis assitant coach Lovie Smith on
screen, forgive me if I found myself thinking that it would be
wonderful if his second name were not Smith, but Dovie.
© 2001 by Stan Isaacs. The Stan Isaacs caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel. The photo of Dennis Miller is courtesy of HBO. The cartoon man is from IMSI's Master Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd., East, San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506, USA.
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