Here's my issue with it even though I thought most of the mic'ed up stuff was pretty good (the Cole/Fried back and forth was surprisingly fun). This specific scenario didn't play out, but it very well could in the future.
Let's say you're a young Royals or Pirates fan who gets their one requisite All Star a year. That's why you're watching, you want to see your guy get up. He's not starting, so you have to wait his turn, maybe the 6th, 7th inning and he finally comes up. You're so excited because the national announcers are going to talk about what a great season he's having despite playing for an also-ran...only his at bat is COMPLETELY ignored because a couple of Yankees are mic'ed up, because they're not marketed enough....
I don't see the argument for how this helps build the game. And the ratings certainly suggest it's not helping because they did a lot of this last year too. It seems like baseball is perpetually chasing fans who are simply not interested in the product. I have long felt that the sport sells itself, an exciting game will create more fans than any number of gimmicks or changes for the "casual fan." The best possible thing for the Field of Dreams Game last year was that it was a thrilling back and forth game with a walk off homer, not that it was in Iowa and Kevin Costner was there.
On that note, looking forward to Joe's thoughts on cutting games to 7 innings because what a horrendous idea.
What I love about Joe's writing is that there are always extra things going on. This post is about micing players up during a game, but it's also not about that. What it's actually about is bad announcing. The former players in the booth could share so much insight, but instead they talk about stupid crap like "how much saliva" or "what the mound feels like." If Smoltz were walking us through what a pitcher is thinking, or A-Rod was talking about what pitch he would be looking for and why, that's what would be interesting.
I remember a MAD magazine comic from the early '70s in which a despondent football coach is being interviewed at halftime, perplexed that the opposing team is guessing his every move. So for the next half, he says, we're going to try X, Y and Z, and we get a pullback and see the opposing team watching it all on TV.
I assume that would be the problem if you mic pitchers in a real game situation.
I loved this piece, although I will never be a convert to having players mic'ed up, whatever the educational and entertainment value was on Tuesday. Because of the circus atmosphere , I've stopped watching the All-Statr game, but it sounds to me like the reason it worked is that it made you really root for Manoah. You got to know him, more than you do most athletes, and to put yourself in his place.
I can tell you that I have the same preference for the actually conducted intentional walk, and have had the same experience of feeling the thing over and done with too soon, and therefore not being able to absorb the strategy. Here are a couple of other reasons why the old way was better.
1) Not actually doing it out is non-mathematical. One of the beauties of baseball is that you CAN play out a game on paper, if you want. The game can be perfectly transcribed. Yes, it's only one play, but this is lost with the fake intentional walk. I have had glitches in analyses I have run because of the guesstimation involved. Who threw the pitches? Did anyone? It's a walk without any balls.
2) I also just do not believe in having plays made by managers and not players. The manager has actually issued the walk. Huh? What's that? I don't think there is any equivalence anywhere else in the game. Besides, as a youngster who understood that virtually no intentional walk was actually advised, I always had the fantasy of being that pitcher who refused my manager. With the rule, the manager is given power he should not have, and part of the game is removed from the field. Managers should direct, but players must play.
It was interesting. Of course, the only way this works is with a pitcher, one willing to talk about his thought process. That is what made it more interesting than any previous thing where they mike up a fielder and just ask them inane questions which get the kind of answers they deserve. You can't do the thought processes of the catcher, because the hitter is right there. You might be able to do a hitter in an event like the ASG where no one cares about time and he steps away to alk about his thoughts for the next pitch, but maybe 10% (being generous would be interesting.
I have seen 100 of these things, and virtually all of them were boring. The only reason this wasn't was that it was a pitcher, ( which is also where the action is) willing to discuss his thought processes and share them, while pretty much ignoring the same inane questions asked of everyone else before to get to that. It is a unicorn, not the future.
Anything that gives us less Smolz inanity is worthwhile...
To add to that, the broadcast was brutal. Have these guys ever watched a baseball game? Has Smolz had a recent head injury? One of the two idiots referred to Goldschmidt as "streaky." This caused me to look at his career stats. As I already knew, this guy has been the opposite of streaky. He is incredibly consistent. They claimed banning shifts in the minor leagues was working to increase hitting. I read an article in the last couple of weeks that said exactly the opposite. It's actually not working. That's why one of the minor leagues now has a large area around second base that players are not allowed to position themselves in. Shouldn't these guys know that? It's not like I dug deep into minor league news. It was reported in The Athletic, possibly even by Ken Rosenthal who was on the ASG broadcast! They also even criticized the umpire for calling a pitch a ball that was clearly outside, even without the pitch track box. This all occurred in the first 2-3 innings of the game. Those two are brutal. Oh, and don't get me started on the embarrassing appearance by David Ortiz. At least I learned that two of the guys in the dugout would not be stooping so low as to fly commercial out of LA. What a relief.
Damn, the media loves Ortiz. As do many of the fans. I have never really gotten it, and every time he is on TV when someone else tells me how wonderful he is I just don't see it. He is off putting and boring to me. A one note guy who plays a character, but is not interesting when he does it.
This is definitely something that can be a regular part of the game. By "game" I don't mean every game or even any game, but certain players doing this in some games. Just watch almost any youtube personality and you can see how narration of events, even menial tasks, can be very entertaining if the narrator is charming in some way.
I feel like if either the PGA or LIV picks up on this strategy, it could work exceptionally well because like baseball, that is also a game of thought and planning.
I don't mind this sort of thing, provided it's in small doses, and is never allowed to distract from the fact that there's an actual game happening. FOX really dropped the ball enough times to negate anything good that came from this. That first inning double by Acuna - did it bounce into the stands, or hit someone? Their replays didn't show that part. When the uniforms are that indistinct, viewers REALLY need to know when a new player comes into the game, right? They made enough of a deal about Albert Pujols coming to the plate - did Miguel Cabrera ever get into the game?
Sandy Koufax's 1966 autobiography, "as told to" Ed Linn, is mostly forgettable, but he does basically what Manoah did, for the first game of the 1963 World Series. For example, he knows Bobby Richardson is a high fastball hitter, but he's not going to give up the high fastball, so let's see if he can get Richardson to chase one neck high... He does this for every pitch of the first inning, then a more abridged account of what he's trying to do with each batter. I was ten years old when I read it, and it really blew my mind to see how much thinking went into pitching, even with the guy you would think could just rear back and blow it past everybody.
I was going to say the solution is a delay in the broadcast so by the time we hear it the pitch already happened. But then the cheating Astros would probably start stepping out of the box just before the pitch so they could cheat.
I followed you since KC Star. I am a subscriber and gave your Top 100 Book to my Dad. But this top States teams I think might be your best writing. Until I read the All Star game with Manoah. Keep up the insight into everything. Thanks for making me love sports and especially baseball even more!
Here's my issue with it even though I thought most of the mic'ed up stuff was pretty good (the Cole/Fried back and forth was surprisingly fun). This specific scenario didn't play out, but it very well could in the future.
Let's say you're a young Royals or Pirates fan who gets their one requisite All Star a year. That's why you're watching, you want to see your guy get up. He's not starting, so you have to wait his turn, maybe the 6th, 7th inning and he finally comes up. You're so excited because the national announcers are going to talk about what a great season he's having despite playing for an also-ran...only his at bat is COMPLETELY ignored because a couple of Yankees are mic'ed up, because they're not marketed enough....
I don't see the argument for how this helps build the game. And the ratings certainly suggest it's not helping because they did a lot of this last year too. It seems like baseball is perpetually chasing fans who are simply not interested in the product. I have long felt that the sport sells itself, an exciting game will create more fans than any number of gimmicks or changes for the "casual fan." The best possible thing for the Field of Dreams Game last year was that it was a thrilling back and forth game with a walk off homer, not that it was in Iowa and Kevin Costner was there.
On that note, looking forward to Joe's thoughts on cutting games to 7 innings because what a horrendous idea.
What I love about Joe's writing is that there are always extra things going on. This post is about micing players up during a game, but it's also not about that. What it's actually about is bad announcing. The former players in the booth could share so much insight, but instead they talk about stupid crap like "how much saliva" or "what the mound feels like." If Smoltz were walking us through what a pitcher is thinking, or A-Rod was talking about what pitch he would be looking for and why, that's what would be interesting.
I remember a MAD magazine comic from the early '70s in which a despondent football coach is being interviewed at halftime, perplexed that the opposing team is guessing his every move. So for the next half, he says, we're going to try X, Y and Z, and we get a pullback and see the opposing team watching it all on TV.
I assume that would be the problem if you mic pitchers in a real game situation.
This is kind of similar to why Tony Romo is so good. Brings us into the thought process of the player initiating and often controlling the action.
I loved the way Manoah was also seeking information
I loved this piece, although I will never be a convert to having players mic'ed up, whatever the educational and entertainment value was on Tuesday. Because of the circus atmosphere , I've stopped watching the All-Statr game, but it sounds to me like the reason it worked is that it made you really root for Manoah. You got to know him, more than you do most athletes, and to put yourself in his place.
I can tell you that I have the same preference for the actually conducted intentional walk, and have had the same experience of feeling the thing over and done with too soon, and therefore not being able to absorb the strategy. Here are a couple of other reasons why the old way was better.
1) Not actually doing it out is non-mathematical. One of the beauties of baseball is that you CAN play out a game on paper, if you want. The game can be perfectly transcribed. Yes, it's only one play, but this is lost with the fake intentional walk. I have had glitches in analyses I have run because of the guesstimation involved. Who threw the pitches? Did anyone? It's a walk without any balls.
2) I also just do not believe in having plays made by managers and not players. The manager has actually issued the walk. Huh? What's that? I don't think there is any equivalence anywhere else in the game. Besides, as a youngster who understood that virtually no intentional walk was actually advised, I always had the fantasy of being that pitcher who refused my manager. With the rule, the manager is given power he should not have, and part of the game is removed from the field. Managers should direct, but players must play.
It was interesting. Of course, the only way this works is with a pitcher, one willing to talk about his thought process. That is what made it more interesting than any previous thing where they mike up a fielder and just ask them inane questions which get the kind of answers they deserve. You can't do the thought processes of the catcher, because the hitter is right there. You might be able to do a hitter in an event like the ASG where no one cares about time and he steps away to alk about his thoughts for the next pitch, but maybe 10% (being generous would be interesting.
I have seen 100 of these things, and virtually all of them were boring. The only reason this wasn't was that it was a pitcher, ( which is also where the action is) willing to discuss his thought processes and share them, while pretty much ignoring the same inane questions asked of everyone else before to get to that. It is a unicorn, not the future.
Back in June they had Schwarber on a mic and asked him about Girardi. Schwarber shut up on that one and pretty much stayed that way.
“You really love baseball, don’t you?” was the worst question ever asked by a member of the media.
Anything that gives us less Smolz inanity is worthwhile...
To add to that, the broadcast was brutal. Have these guys ever watched a baseball game? Has Smolz had a recent head injury? One of the two idiots referred to Goldschmidt as "streaky." This caused me to look at his career stats. As I already knew, this guy has been the opposite of streaky. He is incredibly consistent. They claimed banning shifts in the minor leagues was working to increase hitting. I read an article in the last couple of weeks that said exactly the opposite. It's actually not working. That's why one of the minor leagues now has a large area around second base that players are not allowed to position themselves in. Shouldn't these guys know that? It's not like I dug deep into minor league news. It was reported in The Athletic, possibly even by Ken Rosenthal who was on the ASG broadcast! They also even criticized the umpire for calling a pitch a ball that was clearly outside, even without the pitch track box. This all occurred in the first 2-3 innings of the game. Those two are brutal. Oh, and don't get me started on the embarrassing appearance by David Ortiz. At least I learned that two of the guys in the dugout would not be stooping so low as to fly commercial out of LA. What a relief.
Damn, the media loves Ortiz. As do many of the fans. I have never really gotten it, and every time he is on TV when someone else tells me how wonderful he is I just don't see it. He is off putting and boring to me. A one note guy who plays a character, but is not interesting when he does it.
This is definitely something that can be a regular part of the game. By "game" I don't mean every game or even any game, but certain players doing this in some games. Just watch almost any youtube personality and you can see how narration of events, even menial tasks, can be very entertaining if the narrator is charming in some way.
I feel like if either the PGA or LIV picks up on this strategy, it could work exceptionally well because like baseball, that is also a game of thought and planning.
I don't mind this sort of thing, provided it's in small doses, and is never allowed to distract from the fact that there's an actual game happening. FOX really dropped the ball enough times to negate anything good that came from this. That first inning double by Acuna - did it bounce into the stands, or hit someone? Their replays didn't show that part. When the uniforms are that indistinct, viewers REALLY need to know when a new player comes into the game, right? They made enough of a deal about Albert Pujols coming to the plate - did Miguel Cabrera ever get into the game?
Sandy Koufax's 1966 autobiography, "as told to" Ed Linn, is mostly forgettable, but he does basically what Manoah did, for the first game of the 1963 World Series. For example, he knows Bobby Richardson is a high fastball hitter, but he's not going to give up the high fastball, so let's see if he can get Richardson to chase one neck high... He does this for every pitch of the first inning, then a more abridged account of what he's trying to do with each batter. I was ten years old when I read it, and it really blew my mind to see how much thinking went into pitching, even with the guy you would think could just rear back and blow it past everybody.
Do you want a pitch clock to speed things up, or do you want the pitcher to chat with the audience and slow things down. Can't have both.
This would last until the Astros ;-) figure out away to have a TV-watching spotter signal the batter as to which pitch is coming.
I hate the cheating Astros but every team would do that.
Sorry hit post too soon.
I was going to say the solution is a delay in the broadcast so by the time we hear it the pitch already happened. But then the cheating Astros would probably start stepping out of the box just before the pitch so they could cheat.
I followed you since KC Star. I am a subscriber and gave your Top 100 Book to my Dad. But this top States teams I think might be your best writing. Until I read the All Star game with Manoah. Keep up the insight into everything. Thanks for making me love sports and especially baseball even more!
https://youtu.be/a_vbA8S7Ln8