NEARLY USELESS FIXTURES IN MODERN AMERICA: TV SPORTS ESSAYISTS AND PAY PHONES

Your Friendly Basin is not opposed to tennis. Certainly it is not as unamerican as soccer or Jai 'Lai.

Still, I was stuck in the Doctor's office and it was Wimbledon (I guess that's some kind of big deal because of the grass and strawberries. Back when I was in college, most of the people who liked grass preferred oreos and chocolate pudding packs....but I digress). So I watched some.

No matter what the sport, the presentation pretty much breaks down the same. You've got a guy who can tell you what you're seeing on the screen (in case you're blind or thought you were watching LaCrosse.). That's the play-by-play guy, or, as they like to label themselves, "the broadcaster". You've got another person who tells you what the players were thinking, should have been thinking or should have been taught beforehand. That's the "color" commentator. Since more African-americans have been in that role and they didn't want the word misconstrued, they now refer to that postion as the "analyst". Color is, like, banished. But, anyhow, those are the two jobs.

That division left this whole category of guys out there who really didn't have any talent for either of those things but they had either written books, were friends with athletes or claim to have advanced degrees. It also helpful if they live in New York, because that makes them cooler than mere color......er, analysts or play-by-play guys.......er, "broadcasters". But what to do with these privileged characters. If they're going to be on the broadcast, what will they actually DO?


Well, they came up with these little story sessions, grandly called "essays". Usually, they tell you what you just watched (as in "Tiger shot 35 on the front 9, 33 on the back, for 68. The other guy shot 36 on the front and 35 on the back for 71. Since the other guy started out the day three strokes ahead, that means they are now tied so there will be a playoff. You will watch the playoff but you will not understand it until I do my next essay about what happened in the playoff"). They also do essays about the cultural impact of sporting events (as in: Dick Button's triple toe loop with his right wrist pronated and his left gonad in the classic Chinese Hung Lo position will mean the elimination of polio in our time. We have not seen anything like this since Chairman Mao swam the Yang-Tze without a rubber ducky"). Finally, these guys sometime talk about the setting for the great event (As in: "There is a large pin-white-live Oak tree near the 18th green at the masters. It is the source of gread cameraderie. Fun things happen there. Clifford Roberts shot himself there. Fuzzy Zoeller peed away 14 million dollars in endorsement money there. Dan Jenkins had his forty-third heart attack there and choked on his pimiento sandwich")

These "Essays" have two things in common, no matter what the sport. First, they presume you, the viewer have the IQ of a sprig of parsley. Second they add nothing to your enjoyment of the broadcast. In fact, because they insult your intelligence, they may actually detract from your enjoyment of the event.

Now, there used to be a few guys around who could occasionally actually inform or entertain you with their essays, however innocuous. Jack Whitaker, Jim McKay, Peter Dobreiner to name a few. None of these guys was great but they would hit one essay out of ten that actually added to the quality of the broadcast.

Now we have somebody named Jimmy Roberts.

First of all, C'mon with the name, already. Jimmy Roberts is the little redheaded kid down the street, born three months premature who never quite learned to ride a bike, even though he's now 27.

Second, where did this guy come from? He did some interviews on ESPN when Roy Firestone was having bad hair. Other than that, beats me.

Third, just once, could he tell us something we haven't seen with our own eyes. "(Fill in the Russian/Eastern Euro name) started to cramp up in the third set." Jimmy, Ya Think? Maybe that's why she couldn't put her left foot down flat on the court. "The rain has caused the surface of these grass courts to be unreliable." Jimmy, Ya Think? Maybe that explains the 9 foot divot left by the Spanish guy. Or go back a couple of weeks 'Tiger appeared to be dealing with a painful knee on the back 9" Gee, Jimmy: Ya Think? Maybe that's why the whole world was watching him use his driver as a cane.

My vote is just to get rid of Essayists on sports broadcasts but, if that's not possible, I have some suggestions:

1. No Essays that involve telling us what we just saw;

2. Essays about cultural surroundings must never be longer than 2.5 minutes and should never talk over the sports action;

3. Essayists should always be allowed to tell the producer "I got nothing this hour.....I just got nothing interesting."

4. Tennis Essays should never be about cramps, coaches or parents.

5. Essayists should be like 5th outfielders in the Majors. A couple of bad outings and they're optioned to AAA, even if they still live in New York.