There’s Nothing Like a Baseball Game on Fox

Fox Sports should be renamed FCBS (Fox Can’t Broadcast Sports). Their need to embellish and make everything more exciting ruins the baseball viewing experience. It started with the “whoosh” sound when changing camera shots during baseball. Often, it is difficult to hear the baseball announcers due to the Fox-enhanced crowd noise (which is actually OK when Tim McCarver is working).

The tasteless ads for the “Worst Damn Sports Show, Period” started me pushing the mute button; now I am muting all the tasteless Fox ads that are ruining the baseball experience. Is there any way that FCBS can be limited to broadcasting the WWF, before they take all sports broadcasting into the sewer?

Bill Mead

Oak View

*

Some have had a problem (MASTER CARD) with a huge background graphic ad (BOSTON PUBLIC) that I somehow never noticed (JOHN HANCOCK) as part of the backstop during the (SHALLOW HAL) World Series. This does not (RADIO SHACK) affect me in anyway (ALLY McBEAL) in diverting my attention to the batter (GATORADE) or any of the action at (NEXTEL) home plate. Keep up the good work (BUDWEISER) and thanks for not subliminally saturating us with inane (THE SIMPSONS) ad placements during these great games!

Denese Kelly

Wayne, W. Va.

*

Baseball fans all over the country now know what Dodger fans have known for three years--that Fox couldn’t care less about the game of baseball or the fans as long as there’s money to be made.

Greg Garnet

Canoga Park

*

Last Saturday, one of the letters expressed the view that the Yankees “are truly America’s team”. Excuse me? The last I heard Orange County is still in America, and the Yankees aren’t my team.

In my America, the manager doesn’t encourage the players to whine every time they take a pitch that’s called a strike. Upon retirement, Paul O’Neill will be immediately inducted into the Whiner’s Hall, waiving the customary five-month waiting period.

In my America, all of our pitchers have the guts to play in a National League park. In my America, my team’s fans aren’t rude and obnoxious. They cheer for their team and they don’t jeer the opposition.

And in my America, we pull for our team(s), and we don’t go around suggesting to others for whom they should be pulling.

Gene Miller

Huntington Beach

*

In an interview with Randy Johnson that aired during Game 2, he proudly noted that both he and Curt Schilling “plan mentally to pitch a full nine innings each outing” and consider it “a major letdown” should they fail to go the distance.

I can just imagine Darren Dreifort’s interview on the same subject: “I plan mentally to pitch a full four innings and consider it a major letdown if I fail to get through the lineup at least once.”

Steve Smith

San Gabriel

*

For the second night in a row, a two-run shot with two out in the bottom of the ninth ties the score. If my calendar is correct, it is 2001, not 1919.

The odds of three very good teams rolling over are astronomical, but that is exactly what has happened. I refuse to watch another pitch.

Dave Snyder

Grand Terrace

*

The events of recent days raise some ponderous theological questions: With so much going on in the world, why is God spending so much time with the Yankees?

Rabbi Ephraim Z. Buchwald

New York