Lou Pickney's Online Commentary
Game Show Dreams
Thursday
October 19, 2006
Last night I dreamed that I went on Jeopardy and Press Your Luck (which was being remade for GSN in the dream) and won about $20,000 on each show -- in the same day. Of course that makes zero sense, but c'mon, it was a dream.
Apparently my good fortune seemed too good to be true, since I pinched myself to find out if I was dreaming. No pain. The gig was up. Then I punched myself in the jaw, like I was Tyler Durden in Fight Club... and, again, no pain. I suppose I did that just to be sure. 40 grand is 40 grand, after all. Oh well.
At least I didn't act it out and actually punch myself in my sleep. REM sleep paralysis is a good thing sometimes.
Cardinals vs. Mets, Game 7 is tonight. Last night I was unable to follow the game, since XM has the rights to MLB broadcasts, and I wasn't going to try and luck out finding a local sports station driving through places like Pulaski, TN. My time in radio trained me well. So I figured that I'd listen to ESPN Radio 120 on Sirius, instead.
Sirius is great, and I've mentioned that many times before, so I don't want this to seem like a knock against them. But ESPN Radio had their B-teamers on (their names escape me, probably for the better) for situations like Sirius where the MLB game couldn't air on the ESPN Radio feed. I heard:
-The description of what happened with Bears safety Mike Brown, only I flipped over just after they had started the story, and they kept using pronouns (he did this, he did that) as opposed to his last name. Finally they made mention of John Clayton reporting that Mike Brown might need surgery, but had it not been for that, I'm not sure if I would have heard his name mentioned.
-The woman who was part of the broadcast duo linked ephedra to the death of Korey Stringer. That link has *never* been made, and it irritates me when outright errors like that are given on a national sports radio broadcast.
-What really sent me over the edge was trying to find the score of the Cards/Mets game. At one point the duo started talking about the game, and I figured out from context clues that the Mets were winning in the top of the 8th and that they'd been pitching well, but that was it. No score was given. No score!
The most important information you can give in radio relative to a live sporting event is the time (if applicable) and score. In baseball, time doesn't exist; there are merely innings. So give the inning and the score. Simple, right? No.
Let's just say that I actually started yelling at my Sirius receiver. These things happen when you're driving on the open road and you can't find out the score of the game you want to know about. To be clear, I blame Disney (ESPN's parent company); Sirius merely carries its radio feed.
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