Now that it's over and the Boston Red Sox have won their third title in nine years, let's look back at the media coverage. Predictably, two team members have been accused of cheating. Gop in Jon Lester's glove alleged by a St; Louis Cardinals' Class A player, which makes it a highly reliable source. And probable PED use by David Ortiz by an ESPN commentator. Paraphrasing: "How could he have done what he did at age 37 without help." Interestingly, Jon Lester went face-to-face with the ESPN accuser to defend Big Papi.
Fox breathlessly covered the actual play with Joe Buck, the regular Cardinals' announcer, and Tim McCarver, former Cardinals catcher, doing all they could (largely unsuccessfully) to show impartiality.
Buck was handicapped by the need to introduce each inning and most pauses in the action with mini-commercials. His minis followed an endless series of standard between-innings and between-pitching- changes commercials. As we finally came back to the field of play, Buck re-introduced the action with an ad nauseaum run of, "This is brought to you by, and also by, and also by . . .
Another annoying Fox Sports technique is to reward baseball-hungry male viewers with lingering shots of pretty girls in the stands. This penchant for pulchritude designed to keep the man caves humming was taken to excess when a nice shot of two attractive young women was held too long, and we missed one of the World Series defining moments.
Game five ended dramatically and promptly when a Cardinals' pinch runner was picked off first ending the game and probably the Cardinals' Series hopes. The Fox television director, who was probably over-enjoying his neat shot of the cuties, failed to switch to the live action in time and robbed us of a great live baseball and television moment.
Tim McCarver, on the cusp of retirement, delivered his usual sharp color commentary. He will be missed and is in the conversation, along with Jim Palmer, Steve Stone, Buck Hernandez, Rick Sutcliffe, and a few others as an all-time-great baseball analyst.
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