TBS juggles broadcast teams after Mets disappear

01.10.2007 18:00 Sport and Travel - Source: USA Today

He'll work the Chicago Cubs-Arizona series, with Dick Stockton, and frees analyst Bob Brenly, who had been scheduled to work with Stockton, to form a three-man booth with Chip Caray and Tony Gwynn. That team will call the New York Yankees-Cleveland series and then the National League Championship Series coverage. (Fox will broadcast the ALCS and World Series.)

Ted Robinson and Steve Stone will call the Los Angeles Angels-Boston series. Red Sox local announcer Don Orsillo and Joe Simpson will call Monday's San Diego-Colorado tiebreaker — which will go head-to-head in prime time with Monday Night Football on ESPN, which no longer covers the MLB postseason — and then the winner's series against Philadelphia.

But, TBS executive producer Jeff Behnke says, those assignments were simply based on geography. With tiebreaker locations unclear, he says, staffers and gear began heading to Denver and Philadelphia from a Houston staging ground Saturday. Orsilla and Simpson followed their production teams to Monday's game in Colorado.

TBS will offer various new looks, such as the first live online views from cameras in dugouts and ones focused on pitchers. TBS also will do something that might allow studio analyst Cal Ripken Jr. to add to his career stats. The graphic that creates a sort of rainbow to trace the arc of pitches on game replays will be superimposed in the studio so Ripken can take virtual cuts at pitches thrown in games.

"He'll be standing at a home plate with a bat," Behnke says. "Balls will come in just like at the games. It will be very real." In a vaguely hallucinatory way.

And don't forget: TBS' coverage will be the first MLB postseason games with no over-the-air coverage in participating teams' home markets.

Luck:  With the USA swamping the International squad in the Presidents Cup in Montreal, NBC lucked out with raucous crowds cheering on Canadian Mike Weir in his match against Tiger Woods. Weir won the final two holes to beat Woods, and viewers got to see galleries sporting hockey jerseys. NBC's Roger Maltbie said he had goose bumps, while Johnny Miller said the scene was "pretty chilling." Now we can all take a TV golf sabbatical until 2008.

Dumb:

CBS' Charley Casserly says the NFL is considering putting radio receivers in the helmets of all offensive players — not just quarterbacks — to keep crowd noise from interfering with snap counts. That might produce more mediagenic offenses. But, as Casserly notes, it's dumb to reduce the effect of "fans (who) pay a lot of money to come to the game."

Salty:  On NBC's Sunday night NFL pregame show, Jerome Bettis still seemed miffed about being traded from St. Louis to Pittsburgh — it prompted him to use an on-air expletive. … After upsetting middleweight champion Jermain Taylor on HBO on Saturday, Kelly Pavlik was asked by HBO's Larry Merchant how optimistic he was after being knocked down in the second round. Said Pavlik: "You know what I was really thinking? (Expletive), this is going to be a long night!"

Spice rack:  Ex-NFL stars Roger Staubach and Troy Aikman recently sold majority ownership of their single-car NASCAR racing team. On ESPN's Sunday Countdown, Staubach discussed bigger teams: "These multiple-car garages, they share information. It's like the Eagles, Redskins and Cowboys working together in the locker room." ... Jason Krause, the 10-year-old on ESPN's NFL studio show, on Chicago benching quarterback Rex Grossman: "It's time to sit, my friend. ... If you play bad, you eventually get put in a timeout."

On tap:  NFL Network spokesman Dan Masonson says the channel will announce Monday that it will air its first-ever regular-season college game Saturday: Winston-Salem State-Florida A&M, with announcers Spero Dedes and Sterling Sharpe.

  Add comment

Name:
E-Mail:
Comment:
Enter code: