Ah, More Horrible Sports Coverage by Fox
You sick of Barry Bonds? Think he's over-exposed and want to vomit every time you hear his name or see his face? Fox has the cure -- the opposite cure. Fox, and ESPN, who I'm sorely disappointed in for this, are planning to cover a lot more Bonds. Fox wants to show as many San Francisco games as possible as Bonds nears the all-time home run mark.
What you may not know is that Fox has already started. I was watching the Mets on Fox last weekend when they cut in the middle of the game to show a random Bonds at-bat. At the time he was still nine homers away from breaking the record. Nine! So as I got a live feed that took up most of the TV screen, Fox was nice enough to give the Mets some of the lower right-hand corner.
I was pissed. And maybe I was already angry because the Mets were starting one of their worst losing streaks in a while, but it's ridiculous to cut into a game to show a meaningless at-bat. By the way, he didn't get on-base.
It's too early to start showing so much Bonds. I'm not going to be one of those guys who say they shouldn't show it at all. Breaking the home run record is a huge moment in baseball, whether it's steroid-riddled or not. It should be shown. But not this soon. And Fox wanting to show the whole game is absolutely ridiculous. I don't want to have to tune into Fox for the next month or so to have to watch the Giants until Bonds breaks the record. Fox should just be prepared to cut away to the at-bat that could potentially tie or break the record. The rest is a waste of time for all baseball fans. Seeing Bonds hit a home run that doesn't mean anything in baseball history is pointless. Of course, that's Fox's style.
I've hated Fox's coverage of baseball long before this -- it sucks like CBS' coverage of March Madness. Their announce crew is terrible. Joe Buck is like Satan without the personality and Tim McCarver should get an award if he goes an entire game without screwing up one of the players' names. When your team makes the playoffs, it's great because you get to see them try to win it all, but at the same time, it's upsetting because you know you have weeks and weeks of Buck and McCarver ahead of you. That's no way to enjoy a playoff run.
Since it's Fox, no one should surprised that they are going for sensationalist broadcasting with their excessive Bonds coverage. Only thing we should be surprised about is that they don't have David Hasselhoff personally covering each of the Bonds at-bats. If you want to show baseball history, show the two home runs that count. Anything before that is just a waste of time. Let's not give Bonds any more attention than he needs because outside San Francisco, most people aren't even able to stand the sight of him.
