Classic World Series Game 1 burdened by ceaseless yapping

The Game 1 verdict was unanimous.It was harsh and came quickly — bottom of the second inning. It was rendered by three adult women not inclined to watch baseball unless the Mets or Yankees are in the World Series. Juror 1: “These guys talk so much I don’t hear a thing they say.” Juror 2: “They haven’t shut up, yet, not for even a second.

Do people like this?” Juror 3: “Do they ever stop talking?” No, no they don’t.The Fox team of Joe Davis and John Smoltz doesn’t stop talking — “not even for a second” — thus a game as often riveting as Friday’s had to be suffered — endured — before it could be watched, let alone enjoyed. There was no moment that went unpoisoned by Davis’s excitable exaggerations and reminders that we were watching — or trying to watch — the World Series.

He finished nearly every sentence with the unnecessary, unneeded and unwanted. He habitually chooses superfluous filler over welcomed silence.And so, apparently, does Fox. Heck, when Fox cut to a shot of a crowd of Japanese fans watching the game in Tokyo, at 9:57 a.m., he repeated that info as it appeared in the graphic then added they were watching “the Dodgers-Yankees World Series!” Smoltz topped himself for pitch-by-pitch examinations that, as Juror 1 noted, quickly dulled our senses to every succeeding word and thought he spoke.

Friday, he gave us double doses by predicting what and where the next pitch should be once he was done with his autopsy of the previous pitch. And may I say on behalf of baseball fans throughout the nation: “Aaargghh!” There, that feels better. Eleven years of this colossal butchery, and Fox execs are apparently still alone in believing we enjoy Smoltz. Or perhaps it’s a matter of deserving him to atone for our past sins.Gee, never before considered that. Game 1 Notes: For all of Smoltz’s excesses, a curious matter was left hanging.

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