Good Thing for Fox There’s No Coffin Corner in Baseball

“If anybody talks about a dead guy during a broadcast, I’ll sack ‘em.

“I’m sick of dead guys. Whenever I turn on baseball, all I hear about is dead guys.

“If I hear a name, I’m going to ask: ‘Is he dead?’ And if he is, you’re fired.”

--David Hill, president, Fox Sports

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I am not the funniest person in America--a recent Associated Press poll ranked me 17th--but for years, I considered myself zany enough to write TV comedy for the Fox network.

I had many programs in mind:

--Angela Lansbury, starring in “Baywatch, the Next Generation.”

--Marge Schott, starring in “Selig 17,” about a wacky woman in a baseball camp, run by a befuddled commissioner.

--Martin Lawrence, starring in “L.A. Dodger,” about a drive-by comedian who works the streets, dodging cars.

But then David Hill spoke up.

And that’s when I knew it was hopeless. Because how could I make anybody at Fox laugh, knowing that Hill, an executive there, is 10 times wackier than I am?

David, David, David.

You wild thing, you.

See, beginning June 1, a new comedy program makes its debut on Fox: Major league baseball.

And with Fox being the young, hip, cool, funky, fly, hot-diggity, dog-diggity, “today” television network, we will no longer be annoyed by any sickening chatter about dead guys.

Dead guys have dragged down baseball for years, if I understand Hill correctly (which I may not, since he is from Australia). Every time you turn on your TV to watch a game, some dead guy’s name pops up, faster than you can say Jack Robinson.

Ah, but not with Fox on your box.

No, sir. No dead men walking or striking out, not on Fox. Not on your life.

In an interview with the New York Times, that old nostalgia-bashin’ David Hill warned that if any employee so much as mentions a ballplayer who is six feet under ground, that’s where his career will be.

The first I heard of this was when Fred Roggin of NBC--ah, remember baseball on NBC, everybody? LOTS and LOTS of dead guys!--mentioned it on his newscast Friday night. Fred said Fox’s Hill planned to can anybody who mentioned any immortal who turned out to be mortal.

“Maybe somebody should can him,” came anchorman Paul Moyer’s rejoinder.

Paul is obviously a baseball fan, like Fred and myself, who damn well enjoys his dead guys, and the more the merrier.

Next came the All-Dead Team.

This was called in by Brian Bedol, chief executive officer of cable television’s Classic Sports Network, whose gang quickly put together a team of nine dead guys that could defeat any team of nine alive guys.

Here it is:

Ty Cobb, LF, .367 lifetime.

Rogers Hornsby, 2B, .358.

Babe Ruth, RF, .342, 714 HRs.

Lou Gehrig, 1B, .340.

Mickey Mantle, CF, 536 HRs.

Honus Wagner, SS, .327.

Pie Traynor, 3B, .320.

Thurman Munson, C, .292.

Cy Young, RHP, 511 wins.

The CSN crew conceded a possible weakness at third base, where Mike Schmidt or Brooks Robinson would represent the living.

It also was decided to platoon the late Hank Greenberg at first base, a richly deserved honor, only partly due to Bedol’s business partner, Steve Greenberg, being Hank’s kid.

I also began to imagine a Fox telecast:

“Welcome to Cleveland, where tonight Albert Belle will attempt to hit his 60th home run and write his name in the record book, alongside that fatso who played for the Yankees in 1927 and that other dude, the one in 1961 whose hair fell out.

“Cal Ripken will lead things off for Baltimore, his consecutive-game streak now well past the guy who had that disease named after him.

“Here’s the pitch from Dennis Martinez, a candidate for this year’s, uh, Best Pitcher Award.

“Swing and a long drive! It’s off the wall!

“That’s a 50-game hitting streak for Ripken, who is now closing in on . . . psst! Is that guy who married Marilyn Monroe still alive? . . . Yes, he is! Joe DiMaggio!”