Playoffs cant keep MLB, networks from insulting their viewers

This was a particularly difficult week to suffer what TV has become.It was impossible to escape the sounds and sights of weather warners standing in deadly conditions — pelted by rain, surging seawater and debris-launching, tree-bending, house-splitting winds — to urge viewers to seek shelter from this life-imperiling calamity.“The live camera is not enough.Go stand in front of it.”Then there were MLB’s playoffs.

The Mets-Phillies series opened with the Phils’ Kyle Schwarber hitting a first-inning, leadoff home run.Fox followed with a graphic that was no doubt entered into a database, approved for viewing then posted for national viewing by a cluster of inbred dolts: this was Schwarber’s “first home run of [this] postseason.”Given that it was Schwarber’s first at-bat of the postseason — Philly had a first-round bye — TV still hasn’t learned that the best way to avoid looking ridiculous is before you prepare to look ridiculous.But networks, like national politics, possess a mystical ability to place irresponsible people in responsible places.ESPN again tried to reinvent the flat tire by eliminating runs, hits and errors graphics from its half-inning cuts to commercials.TBS posted three round yellow dots, one for each out, as if we needed that third yellow dot to realize three outs are all you get (at least for now).“How many outs are there?” “I’m not sure, but at least two.”Fox graphics included revelations such as the batter who was “0-for-6, no HRs.”But by now it’s clear that Rob Manfred’s primary mission as commissioner is to milk every last nickel someone will throw MLB’s way by orders of team owners and the MLBPA, who share the benefits.

You? As my uncle would say, “You get borscht.”Thus it should be duly noted and fully credited that Manfred has succeeded in attaching, in large conspicuous letters, the word “STRAUSS” to every batting helmet, meaning “STRAUSS” dominates the TV view of every pitch of thi...