Is TBS Good for Baseball?

I was shocked when I learned that the NLDS and ALDS, as well as the NLCS were going to be aired on TBS. These are playoff games we are talking about. How does TBS, which survives on syndicated sitcoms, end up with the MLB playoffs? Apparently, they conjured up enough money to outbid ESPN and Fox for the coverage. In all fairness to TBS, they saw a chance to improve their ratings, and took full advantage of it. But as a fan, the last channel I want to be watching baseball on in October is TBS (if you are a Braves fan, I am very sorry).


Being a Yankee fan, I paid most attention to the Indians-Yankees series. Chip Caray (who is this again???) was chosen by TBS to be the play-by-play reporter, along with Bob Brenly and Tony Gwynn as color commentators. While Brenly and Gwynn offered good insight into each game, Caray, became increasingly annoying. For example, the Indians had a runner on 1st base in the early innings of game 2, and the batter laid down a sacrifice bunt right in front of home plate. It was apparent that Posada had only one play, the runner at first. Caray, apparently, felt that this was going to be the play of the game, screaming out, “And the Yankees are only going to have one play!” I was actually stunned. It wasn’t so much what he said, but how he said it. By the way, the runner was stranded on second.

Later on in that same game, Grady Sizemore led off with a triple. While Sizemore is rounding second base, Caray begins shouting, “Speed, speed, speed, speed, speed, speed!” followed by 10 seconds of complete silence. Honestly, I myself am speechless. How do you react to an unnecessary barrage of “speeds”?

Lastly, I’d like to make a quick comment on the K-Zone, TBS style. What a disaster. For the first few games, there were squares within squares, and a circle would pop up somewhere around where the pitch was. A third grader could have come up with something that was easier to understand. Luckily, TBS realized the problem. However, instead of solving it and completely ridding themselves of the worthless graphic, they decided to make the supposed “strike zone” red. Now, we know where TBS thinks the strike zone is, it just doesn’t make any sense.

MLB has been attempting to recover from the strike year in 1994, and the recent steroid investigations. Overall, there has been a resurgence, but the current coverage on TBS is sure to turn off some viewers, and I hope no one watches Frank TV.