Who Are All These People Talking to?

I did not go to the World Series, because I had been planning a romantic vacation to exotic Missouri and did not want to spoil it.

But I did get to watch the thing on television.

I love television. I am not one of those brainy idiots who only watches “Meet the Press” and PBS. I’ll watch anything. I am one of the tube’s biggest boobs. Some of my best friends are Cagney, Lacey, Hardcastle, McCormick, Simon, Simon, Scarecrow, Mrs. King, Kate and Allie. I cry myself to sleep missing MacGruder and Loud, especially Loud.

As for sports on television, though, I do not really watch much. I usually am in attendance at the major sporting events, where the only television I want is the one with the instant replay. For me to go home and watch sports is like Chef Boy Ar Dee going home from a hard day of canning ravioli and having to cook his own dinner. Too much like work.

But since the World Series is something special--even if it is not being held in 49 states and Canada--I decided to watch it. ABC promised to keep Howard Cosell’s heavily carpeted head off my screen, so I figured it was the least I could do.

Seven games later, I must say a few words about the coverage. It was not my intention to do so, because there are plenty of TV critics in the world who get paid good money to saw programs in half. If God had wanted me to be a TV critic, He would have given me 19-inch rectangular eyes.

Nevertheless, I cannot shut up regarding what I saw. Typical sportswriter. Do nothing, know nothing, comment on everything.

There was nothing particularly terrible coming out of the tube, although the customers at one tavern I patronized seemed to believe that Jim Palmer was born to be seen and not heard. Personally, I think Palmer is pretty good on television, and these guys at the bar were probably just a bunch of jealous guys who do not look good in underwear.

What I would like to mention to the boys at ABC, should they for some reason see this, is that there is an epidemic at that network that was first spread by the gentlemen who announced football games on Monday nights. This disease is commonly known as talking about each other.

ABC has this habit of putting three men in the booth and encouraging them to gab with one another. At least this practice does not seem to be discouraged. They call each other by name, constantly, as if no one in the audience can remember who they are, and they talk to and about themselves. They ought to be talking to me , the audience, about the game and nothing but the game.

One of my favorite people, Mr. Harry Caray of Chicago and Palm Springs, has a tendency to do this, and it makes me a little crazy. One night he spent a couple of minutes talking about how he had neglected to bring a jacket to the ballpark and was freezing. All I could think of was: Who exactly is it out there in Television Land who is interested by the fact that the man announcing the baseball game is cold? Is it supposed to be a warning, in case we hear his teeth rattling?

Al Michaels, Tim McCarver and Palmer, three glib and articulate men, did this sort of thing during the World Series more than I have ever heard any of them do it before. Lots of chatter about each other, about ducking under the table to avoid foul balls coming back toward the booth, about last night’s meal, about other ABC announcers and producers, about the careers of McCarver and Palmer.

I am not saying that such conversation took up every minute. But it is so noticeable when it does occur, during something so important as the World Series, that it magnifies itself, to the extent that tens of millions of people are wondering why a fellow broadcaster feels it necessary to refer to Michaels as “Alfalfa.”

It is easy to sit back and snipe, but that is what the watching of television does for you (or to you)--it gives you time to focus on every picture and listen to every sound. No missed camera shot, no slip of the tongue can sneak past the audience. No dumb remark goes unnoticed.

Television exposes everything. Not only does it give us interviews with Reggie Jackson and Reggie Jackson doing interviews, it gives us Reggie Jackson on the field trying to find his interviews. Jackson, a smart and smart-mouthed fellow, often rolls his eyes in locker rooms at reporters’ questions, or offers brief and sarcastic answers, or uses profanity that he knows television and radio reporters must edit or not use. On live television, though, he is all charm. I live for the day a player being interviewed by Reggie Jackson sneers at a dumb question he has just asked.

One last matter: Instant Replay. When George Brett crashed into the dugout, chasing a foul ball, ABC did a great thing. It ran a replay at actual speed, so we could fully appreciate what Brett did. Slow-motion is perfect for close calls by umpires, but it absolutely kills defensive plays.

There is a lot more I could say about this, but I can’t. I have to stop writing now and get back to the television. Somebody is trying to turn on somebody named Mike Wallace. I think he’s the guy whose show runs opposite Punky Brewster.