It’s Fox’s worst nightmare.
OK, so I was wrong. Completely wrong. The Astros were able to come back from their NLCS game 5 loss to beat the Cardinals last night 5-1 in the deciding NLCS game 6.
But I was right about one thing. They won in an excruciatingly boring fashion. Let’s see, there was a run scoring on a wild pitch, a single, and some other unmemorable plays. The game, again, was not error free. And, again, there was a controversial call at 2nd base when Molina was “tagged” out at second base (replays showed no tag). There was one home run. And there was squeeze play late in the game which was neat.
But it was not a close game, not an interesting game, not the kind of game that a channel surfer would stumble upon and say “Hey, I’ve got to watch this!” Fox must hate it when the home team loses. Do you think the Astros would rather have Oswalt starting game 1 of the World Series (which he presumably would have if the Astros had won game 5) or Roger Clemens? You can bet that Fox would rather have Clemens pitching game one, since they can at least spin an interesting story about him to pitch to potential viewers.
But ‘Stros vs. White Sox is a far cry from Cubs vs. Red Sox (it’ll happen, give it time). The White Sox should win this one in 5. They’ve been resting since they won the ALCS pennant about three months ago.
Here a few more gems from the Fox broadcasting team from the ALCS game 3 (featuring the Chicago White Sox vs. The Los Angeles Anaheim California Orange County West Coast Pacific Time United States of America Western Hemisphere Angels).
9:25 pm. Tim McCarver starts talking about Roy Oswalt (who plays for the Astros – presumably because McCarver has nothing to say about this game) and says “Seems like he’s in a different league.” Yeah, the National League. You know, where the Cardinals play? How about watching and talking about this game?
10:44 pm. A.J. Pierzynski gets a leadoff single, and Lou Pinella says, “I think you’ll see them try to add a run here.” No kidding.
If McCarver and Buck do the World Series, I will be yelling at the TV for sure.
