Series of Lessons Were Learned

Hard lessons gleaned from the 2000 Subway Series--may we commit them to memory so we won’t have to do this again for another 44 years:

1) The world did not end, the earth did not open up and swallow Yankee Stadium whole, no foot soldiers for the Demonic Forces of the Apocalypse were spotted canvassing greater Gotham. Although someone might want to check Roger Clemens’ credentials again. He could be an advance scout.

2) “New York, New York” is a lie. If I can make it there/I’ll make it anywhere? Not with a national 12.4 rating with a 21 share. Give me rewrite: If they play a Subway Series there/The rest of the country will not care. . . .

3) The most-talked-about baseball play of the Subway Series did not involve a baseball. It involved a pitcher pitching a bat at a batter--sending the Great City into convulsions of hysteria for three days--soon to be the first new rule adopted by Vince McMahon when he begins the XMLB.

4) Fox finally found a way to put a team in the World Series. Simple, really. Just buy the television rights.

That team, headed by Joe Buck and Tim McCarver and augmented by the supporting cast of Keith Olbermann and Steve Lyons, had a creditable five-game run through the World Series. (Although I am glad the APB on Bob Brenly finally produced some results. In the Fox broadcast booth, Brenly was so silent a third wheel, I thought he accepted the Diamondbacks’ managerial job in the middle of Game 1 and left for Arizona without telling anyone. But, no, cameras caught Brenly interviewing Bobby Valentine outside the Met clubhouse after Game 5. Good work, NYPD.)

The Fox telecasts were so fundamentally sound, so surprisingly un-Fox-like--no Greco-Roman wrestling matches between analysts, none of the loud shrill noise blasts that frankly scare the sofa sores off most grown-ups--that TV viewers, at least those few actually viewing, had to be asking themselves some unlikely questions.

Why can’t Fox do this all the time, with every sport it televises?

Was NBC’s baseball crew taking notes, because Fox had it outmanned at almost every position?

Why can’t Fox do this with the Dodgers?

In case Bob Graziano and Kevin Malone were too busy interviewing Yankee coaches to notice, a brief recap:

STAFF ACE

Fox at the Series: As Fox’s play-by-play man, Buck had the right game plan going into the first all-New York World Series since 1956: The less he trampled over it, Buck said before the Series, the better. Buck stayed the course through the final out of Game 5, bringing some sorely needed subtlety and understatement to this New York nervous breakdown.

Better still, Buck realized that the World Series is still just a stick-and-ball game played at a ballpark, not High Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. His smart, succinct post-Series sign-off, performed entirely without rapturous swoon or solemn genuflection, ought to be played and replayed for every card-carrying member--and there are far too many--of baseball’s Dread Poets Society.

Fox at Chavez Ravine: The bucks never stop with Kevin Brown. One hundred and five million of them for 13 victories and a death-to-public-relations personality? When he watched Clemens try to impale Mike Piazza with that broken bat, Brown shook his head and grumbled, “Too much fraternization between rival players these days.”

CATCHER

Fox at the Series: They could light four boroughs if they hooked McCarver’s motor-mouth up to a power plant. (Maybe that’s what happened to Brenly. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise.) When you talk that much, not every sentence is going to be a pearl; those “Don Rickles Pitches”--3-0 and 3-1 counts where hitters can truly be “offensive”--were truly annoying. But, in a business in which most ex-jocks protect their own, McCarver was tough on players when he needed to be, chastising the Mets for their repeated baserunning gaffes and becoming the first to brand Clemens’ impromptu javelin throw as “way over the line.”

Fox at Chavez Ravine: In constant search for a quality catcher, the Dodgers finally found one by channel-surfing onto 11. That guy hopscotching over bat splinters and driving baseballs into the bleachers. Yeah, him. I think the name’s Piazza.

SETUP MAN

Fox at the Series: What’s this? Intelligent, thoughtful interrogation in the locker room instead of the customary, “Gee, Derek, why are so you great?” gushing geysers? Olbermann, not always easy on the ears, was a true asset as Fox’s dugout-and-

clubhouse reporter. Journalism students will want to note Olbermann’s Q-and-A technique with Clemens after the Game 2 bat-throwing incident. Olbermann gradually elicited the necessary information without resorting to a Jim Gray grandstanding special. (“Roger, why won’t you apologize to me RIGHT HERE and RIGHT NOW?”) Had Gray tried his Pete Rose approach with Clemens, Clemens might have head-butted him. Which, no doubt, would have boosted ratings.

Fox at Chavez Ravine: Matt Herges also more likable than Gray.

UTILITY MAN

Fox at the Series: Lyons is a loose cannon, but he doesn’t take the game too seriously and handles himself behind the mike the same way he played the outfield: With passion and intensity.

Fox at Chavez Ravine: The Dodgers have many utility men. Given the opportunity, the club would unload most of them with passion and intensity.

MANAGER

Fox at the Series: Brenly, who would like to manage the Diamondbacks, had one good line early in the Series. Before the postseason, Brenly said: “The question was, ‘Who the heck is Tim Perez?’ The better question might be, “Where is Timo Perez?’ ” By Game 4, Perez could have said the same thing about Brenly. Probably not all Brenly’s fault, though. Three men in the booth, when McCarver is one of them, is at least one too many.

Fox at Chavez Ravine: Beware of managers who reached the World Series with the Mets before signing on with the Dodgers. Davey Johnson wasn’t a good fit in L.A. Would Valentine be any better? The best candidate in New York was last seen dripping with champagne after Game 5. Joe Torre has won four World Series in five years with the Yankees. What the Dodgers would like to know: Why wasn’t he fired for the one miss?