Computer Wins, but We Lose

Well, I see where the Great God Television has done it to us again. Ruined a perfectly good election. Killed a whole evening’s entertainment. Rained on our parade. Stomped on their own ratings.

Listen! Do you like to go to a movie, get settled in, open your bag of popcorn and get ready for a night of suspense--and then have the guy next to you lean over and whisper, “The butler did it.”?

Well, that’s what television does every election night. They can’t wait to tell you how the plot comes out.

They do this with a diabolical invention called “exit polls.” This is nothing more nor less than sneaking a peek at the election returns before they have been tabulated. If they did this by cracking open the back of the ballot box, they would go to prison. But they do it with a high-paid snoop at the door of the voting booth and it’s perfectly legit.

Listen! Do you remember how elections used to be before they got computers into the gig? They were fun. You could heat up a mess of popcorn, get a case of soda pop and sit yourself in front of a radio--or early television--and the suspense would build.

It was like a good heavyweight fight. The big-city vote would come in, but you’d have to await the rural upstate returns before you’d have a decision. Moreover, you’d have to wait for the polls to close.

Now, what happens? They have these busybody electronic snoops who go out and tell you six months in advance who’s going to win and by how much. They sometimes stampede a whole electorate because we are a nation of front- runners--if you don’t think so, watch a fight crowd or even a baseball crowd switch allegiance to the guy who gets the upper hand.

But, I have learned to live with those early campaign polls. They got a chance to be wrong--even though they haven’t been since Truman beat Dewey.

But, on Election Day, these spoilsports have a sure thing going--the exit polls. These are an electronic abomination, the worst invention of man this side of a bulldozer or music amplifier. They feed these ill-gotten scraps of voter information into the computers and presto!

On the basis of a few scraps of information from the voters of Devil’s Notch, N.H., the leave-blank-name-of-network is able to project a winner.

Do you know what time the networks elected Bill Clinton President? I’ll tell you: it was 7:50 p.m. PST. Now, what’s interesting about that is, the polls hadn’t even closed in the West. People were still voting. People were on their way to cast their ballot--and NBC had already awarded California to Gov. Clinton. Before an official vote was counted!

What if this slops over into athletics? What if this cast of characters finds a way to lock into our field? You know, sports are the last spontaneous entertainment to be found on the tube. Everything else is prerecorded and comes out of a cassette. It’s so boring and predictable, they even get all excited over an oil-well fire that comes along every other phase of the moon at our harbor.

I can see it now. It’s the eve of the World Series and Dan Rather comes on: “On the basis of batting practice and the presence of the star outfielder in Madonna’s apartment the night before, CBS is now able to project the Toronto Blue Jays as the repeat winners of the World Series beginning tomorrow.

“The Series will go six games and will be decided by Otis Nixon bunting into a double play in the 11th inning of Game 6. CBS was able to compute this by feeding the machine Jack Morris’ curveball, Dave Winfield’s birth date, a copy of the umpire’s eye chart and two interviews with a first-string catcher at an after-hours joint over at Ft. Erie.”

Why hold a Super Bowl? The machines will tell you, two weeks before the kickoff, “The Washington Redskins will win it, 70-20. Buffalo’s running back, Thurman Thomas, for the second straight year, won’t be able to find his helmet for the first series of downs and, when he finds it, he won’t need it. He will again get only 13 yards in 10 carries.

“The AFC will not win another Super Bowl in this century and that conference, which has lost Super Bowls, 38-16, 46-10, 39-20, 42-10 and 55-10 in recent years, will petition the NFC to transfer the Washington Redskins and San Francisco 49ers to its league. It will offer them the Denver Broncos in exchange.”

There will be no need to tune in to the U.S. Open golf tournament.

“An unknown will win it,” the machines will aver. “Shank Slicer, a club pro from Decatur who has never won anything, will take it by holing out a four-wood from 240 yards on the 72nd hole.

“It will sail over the head of Greg Norman, who will be standing on the green with a three-foot putt which he will then miss to lose the tournament by a shot. John Daly will hit three 400-yard drives on the final day. Unfortunately, two of them will come on 360-yard holes. With water in the back.”

Of the U.S. Open tennis tournament, the forecast will say, “It will be won by a guy named Ivan, Boris or Goran. If Goran does, Bud Collins will say it was because Ivan was Terrible and Boris wasn’t Goudenoff.”

A heavyweight championship fight will be a piece of cake for the data banks.

“On the basis of two days of training camp, ABC is able to predict Evander Holyfield will be stopped in Round 3 by Riddick Bowe. Our projections show Evander cannot win over anything under the age of 42, or under 250 pounds, including his punching bag.”

As with elections, they will be able to give you up-to-the-minute advisories. At Indianapolis, for instance, the machine can say, “The pole-sitter will crash during the parade lap again, the race will be won by an Unser, but tell the advertisers to put their decals on ambulances and fire engines, since they will be on the track more than the Chevies and Cosworths.

“Tell the guy in car No. 11 to be sure to say goodby to his loved ones and tell car No. 5’s driver to be sure to give his blood type to his garage. NBC is projecting the wall as the big winner.”

At the Breeders’ Cup, the electronic forecaster will be ready: “Don’t bet the No. 4 horse. The rider has cocaine in him. On the other hand, bet No. 11. The horse has cocaine in him.”

Foretelling sometimes comes in handy: “On that ground ball going to Jose Offerman, will the customers behind first base please duck?” Or, “That batter who is digging in to face Nolan Ryan’s fastball? Will you please take that bat out of his hands and give him a lily?”

Basketball will be no problem: “The Chicago Bulls will win, Michael Jordan will take 11 steps on the critical hoop, seven of them on takeoff and four in the air.

“Jordan will not get called for traveling. Jordan would not get called for traveling if he walked to Bakersfield, and would not get called for double-dribbling unless he had something on his chin. Karl Malone will announce he will not play against him because he has dandruff.”

Well, if they can louse up national elections for us, why not Final Fours, World Cups--hey! World Wars?

I’m going to go right now to sign up for the verdict on the next America’s Cup. I won’t be able to stand the suspense of not knowing for three more years.