Dial File — Steve Bornfeld: Gag baseball’s hyperactive hype-mongers!

Friday, Oct. 22, 1999 | 10:28 a.m.

Steve Bornfeld is the Sun features editor. His television column appears Fridays.

"It's the Game of the Century!"

-- Fox promo, Yankees vs. Red Sox last Saturday.

"The Yankees! The Braves! Who will be the Team of the Decade?!"

-- NBC promo, 1999 World Series this Saturday.

"There are three kinds of lies -- lies, damned lies and statistics."

-- Benjamin Disraeli.

Rarely have so many said so much that means so little.

Or, put another way: SHADDUP!

Too subtle? Try this:

SHADDUP! SHADDUP! SHADDUP! SHADDUP! SHADDUP! SHADDUP!

That goes for every network announcer in baseball's post season ... with one exception: God bless Bob Costas.

On the eve of the Yankees-Braves World Series, three facts about baseball on television are indisputable: 1) Hype is hopelessly out of control. 2) Announcers need to SHADDUP! 3) Statistics are as technically true and wildly misleading as Bill Clinton under oath.

As a Bronx-born, pinstripe-bleeding Yankee fan (and damn proud of it) this viewer was immensely anticipating last Saturday's matchup pitting former Bosox ace "Rocket Roger" Clemens (who's more like a vintage biplane these days) against his former teammates in his former ballpark, wearing the uniform of the hated-in-Beantown Bronx Bombers, squaring off against Pedro Martinez, Boston's latter-day Clemens, and enduring the poison-tipped taunts of the Boston faithful who once fawned over his every fastball.

Who couldn't love the drama? After the first five pre-game minutes ... me. And that was before the Sox thrashing of the Yanks had even commenced.

The Fox broadcasting crew -- surely the most bellicose bunch of blowhards ever to besmirch a ballgame -- proved anew that understatement is undervalued. The game? It was the most awesome, incredible, breathtaking, pulse-pounding, heart-stopping, temperature-rising, fever-inducing, tension-building, one-of-a-kind, never-before-seen, never-to-be-seen again miracle matchup in the history of civilized sports dating back to the Paleozoic Age.

That was before the first pitch. The first commercial. The first breath taken.

With all the built-in drama and eloquence of a Shakespearean play to work with, the Fox Flunkies poured on all the finesse of a Schwarzenegger kill-fest.

And that, this viewer decided, is why God created mute buttons. The first three innings were digested in glorious, hype-free silence: Just thrown ball, batted ball, fielded ball, booted ball ... BASEBALL. Without the bull. (Granted, by the fourth inning, with Yank pitches resembling grapefruits and Bosox bats the size of tree trunks, the picture proved as painful as the sound. Both were zapped: See No Evil plus Hear No Evil equals Feel No Evil.)

Conversely, the truly thrilling final game of the Mets-Braves series -- the extra-inning nail-biter rife with Mets miracles, Braves comebacks and an anti-climactic walk-in-the-winning-run finale -- was allowed to unspool and feed off its own drama, with NBC's Costas and Joe Morgan underlining instead of overwhelming the action.

But while Costas conquers hot-air hype, he's hamstrung by the to-hell-with-the-truth hype.

Consider the statistical snow jobs perpetuated by those ubiquitous graphics that seem to pop up after every pop-up -- most this, most that, most this, that and the other in "post-season" play -- with a conveniently absent footnote: The once-seven game post-season (World Series) has ballooned to 19 games (division playoffs, league championship series and World Series).

On a comparative level, it's not apples and oranges. It's watermelons and raisins. Enter Costas.

In a laser-sharp commentary in last week's TV Guide, sports columnist Phil Musnick writes: "Funny how (Costas) as the speaker of indisputable baseball truths, has been identified as a killjoy, a kook and, perhaps most damning of charges, a sports traditionalist. ... That's because few sportscasters ... possess both the knowledge and inclination to suggest to a fired-up audience that they are victims of a hotfoot."

Proving himself the Disraeli of sports broadcasters, Costas tells Mushnick: "I'm supposed to fall into step, recite illogical notions as truth. I'm supposed to look at post-season statistics as if World Series games and two rounds of playoff games are the same. ... I end up arguing with my own screen ... When I make that distinction, it's, 'Oh, there goes Costas again, trying to ruin everything.' But how can any responsible broadcaster not make that distinction?"

One lonely guardian of integrity, standing up to a tidal wave of hype with a teacup of truth.

Do some contemporary achievements merit the kudos? Absolutely. Who could argue with the record-busting home run heroics of Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa? Who would want to? Going mano a mano against Roger Maris, they match -- and surpass -- a legitimate slugging standard, and it's because they are graded on a statistically level playing field that they deserve to wear heroes' halos.

But fame doesn't alter facts. To mention that Babe Ruth blasted 60 homers in a 154-game season as opposed to the 162-game seasons of McGwire, Sosa and Maris is to court the Costas curse of derision, as if all those achievements can't co-exist. Today must trump yesterday.

Costas' struggle is symptomatic of a culture either too egotistical to respect history or too insecure to gauge itself within that context. In a rapid-fire media world that seems to view the past as a quick appetizer to the three-course present and a buffet future (consider the Cox cable TV ads, which declare: NOW'S the future; NOW you're livin', as if we weren't before), anything less than slavish devotion to that hype is heresy.

Why are we so afraid to play fair with history? Maybe it's the millennium. So feverish are we to hurtle toward the future that we trample the past, more caught up in what we can do than what we have done. And maybe that's encoded into the American character, what propels us forward and makes us great -- and has made us great for a few hundred years.

And sports -- particularly the national pastime -- has always been the ultimate metaphor for that American competitive lust. Even when we compete with ourselves.

But all the hyperactive hype hints at an increasing cultural panic -- as if we can't top ourselves anymore without blurring the truth and bending reality, even just a bit.

Even through distorted baseball statistics -- seven games, 19 games, hey, "post-season" is "post-season"! -- that cheapen the game. Even through breathless baseball adjectives -- incredible! unbelievable! -- that grow more hollow with each exclamation point.

This boisterous egotism betrays a nagging emptiness.

In a passage from "Hamlet" that has endured as a skewering of hypocrisy and unmasking of insecurity, William Shakespeare wrote: "The lady doth protest too much."

And in hype-addled America: "The sportscasters doth promote too much."

Croon a Tune: "Got me again, Steve."

So declared one Tune Crooner, who didn't recognize the vaguely goofy theme for "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour." Well, that's OK, dear. Mom still liked you best -- and so do I.

Crooners who tuned into the tune -- the melodic calling card of the Brothers Smothers, those Vegas stalwarts who returned to the Orleans this week -- were savvy theme song sleuths Renee Savicki, Augie "Mom Always Liked You Best" Kunkel, Peter Green, Joe "That's The Show That Gave Us Steve Martin" Lacy, Sol "Sweet Cheeks" Rosenberg, Dan Ryan and Rich Kackstetter, who caught the duo's shtick at the Orleans earlier this year and recalled: "It brought tears to our eyes, remembering the fun of 30 years ago."

And speaking of fun, you'll find a ton by phoning 259-4012 (it will pick up after four rings) for this week's itty bitty ditty. Nail it this week, nail Dial File kudos next week.

That and a $20 bill discreetly slipped into the maitre d's palm might get you a decent table at Denny's. Or it might not.

Closing Credits: Fox has performed an abortion on "Manchester Prep," the teen drama which was to be based on the film "Cruel Intentions." Trade magazine Electronic Media reported that the series, which had been bumped back to a December debut because the network was "dissatisfied with the show's early direction," finally stopped production after two episodes.

Oh, and there was one other thing: Fox Sugar Daddy Rupe Murdoch was apparently incensed after an excised clip from the series pilot -- "featuring a teenage girl turned on while horseback riding" -- was widely publicized.

How come that never happened to Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman?

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