Biased Announcers

Extra Innings is an interesting package, as one can watch any baseball game at home. They could live in Boston, be a Dodgers fan and catch every West Coast L.A. Dodger game throughout the season. It's kind of neat to watch the different commercials played in different parts of the country, from Minneapolis to San Diego to Washington D.C. Along with that, it's also very intriguing to listen to the different announcers, which represent all 32 ball clubs.

That brings me to a game I saw this past week between the Atlanta Braves and the San Francisco Giants in Frisco. It was Game 1 of the four game series and was shown on Bay City Fox Sports via Extra Innings. The two announcers obviously represented the hometown Giants and their commentary certainly illustrated that. Now, I can understand some bias. That's fine. I regularly watch the Braves and there will be times that Joe Simpson, Skip or Chip Carey will say something along the lines of, "It'd be nice for the Braves to win this one," but they don't repeat those lines very often. If the Braves are stinking up the place, they don't shy away from being blunt and objectively stating the facts, which I like. These Giants' announcers complained all game long about the strike zone, especially in regard to second baseman Ray Durham. I watched the game. I admit to having a pretty liberal strike zone, but the strike calls that Durham and the announcers complained about looked like strikes to me. The first one was above the belt, but right down the middle. There is that new "high strike" rule, fellas. A pitch right above the belt is supposed to be called a strike now under that rule. The second pitch may have been a bit more arguable, but I still think it was a strike. The pitch was the same height as the previous, but was a bit further inside. Where the catcher caught the ball, I can understand Durham and the announcers' gripe, but remember, it doesn't matter where the catcher catches the baseball. It only matters where the ball crossed the plate. From the angle I saw it, it appeared that the ball caught the inside corner before appearing to be inside when the catcher caught it. It's not like these were horrible calls no matter which way the broadcasters want to call it. I've seen some awful strike calls before, balls that were a good six to twelve inches outside when the ball crossed the plate (figuratively speaking, in this case). I've seen ankle high balls get called strikes. These pitches may have been somewhat borderline, but borderline in any scenario, depending upon the home-plate umpire that night, could be called strikes. Some umps have much stricter strike zones than others.

I've thoroughly enjoyed some game calling by the announcers in Florida and of course in L.A. (the Dodgers), but the Giants' announcers on Monday night kind of got on my nerves there after a while. Outside of the complaints regarding the strike zone, they were alright. They called a decent game, made some intriguing statements throughout, and kept the viewers in tune to what was going on. But, the on-going complaints just got to be too much. Slight bias to root for a team is one thing. Bias to the point of annoyance is another.