The Harold Reynolds' Quirkycool Perspective of the Day:
Oct.28, 2015
World Series -- Game 2
NY Mets @ KC Royals
Commentator Scorebook:
(Fox telecast)
Joe Buck (JB)
Harold Reynolds (HR)
Tom Verducci (TV)
Top 1st, two outs
Cueto pitching to D. Murphy
TV:
Yeah, those orchestrations, the quick delivery, the shimmy shakes, the
delays... They shouldn't bother the Mets lineup that much. Really, Lucas
Duda is the only one with a timing mechanism -- the high leg kick. Most
of these Mets hitters get set very early (Ed: not true of Granderson, who has that hitch in his giddy-up).
JB: I think sometimes it bothers Cueto more than it does the hitter (Ed: speculative drivel)
HR:
You know, I just think he's very unique. For a guy to be able to throw
strikes and do that? You just don't see it. I love the creativity. I
think our game can be boring at times... So I love seeing this. But I
think he's very... To throw strikes: I don't know how he's able to do it. Let's just put it that way. I think it's pretty fascinating. (Ed: goddamn right!)
JB: His teammate Edinson Volquez tried it; couldn't do it (Ed:
what the fuck is he referring to exactly? I don't recall Volquez ever
doing a shimmy on the mound. Enough with the negative criticism of
things you neither enjoy, nor appreciate, Joe!!)
*
Daniel Murphy, on the very next pitch, proceeds to strike out looking
at a tailing two-seam fastball from Cueto, in the upper part of the
zone, drawing back to the inside corner of th plate...on the black!
Murphy, in 2015, was the most difficult player to strike out in the majors. There's
no mention of this astounding and quite interesting fact, nor of
Cueto's achieving the impossible by a) not allowing Murphy to homer b)
striking him out while he's on fire c) catching him looking at a pitch
that ended up in the strike zone, to end the first inning of Game 2, a
must-win for the Mets, which set the tone early: not tonight, bitches.
*
*
As I wrote my brother-in-law, "not sure how can you so quickly cave into the Harold Reynolds criticism?
This is only his first or second year in the booth; The insufferable
Buck and MacCarver were given thirty years to destroy all of baseball's
best moments, now preserved in digital archives for eternity. Cultural
criminals! Back to Reynolds: the guy has a great voice, he's fantastic
on the mlb network, eloquently describing the subtler movements of the
game. Yeah, ok, he doesn't know shit about geopolitics, some
observations come off as way too obvious (though there seems to be a
more subtle sublayer to a lot of these cliches), and has a tough time
shutting up. BUT, the dude's enthusiasm is contagious and so are many of
his insights. Good
sense of humor. Bold enough to take over the Fox booth and bust it open
from the inside! Joyfully opinionated about baseball minutae (and
almost always right, according to my commentator scorebook). And was one
helluva replacement player, to boot (a teammate of Uncle Vic!). If
only there were more announcers like him (actually, A-Rod has been
surprisingly succint and articulate, if only a bit too robotic in his
emotional detachment)"
*
*
In an older post on this blog, I'd danced somewhat psychedelically through hypothetical conversations with a similarly resented commentator, Joe Morgan. While the racist overtones of major league baseball are obvious to any of us with heightened sensitivities to conscious and subconscious forms of such institutional racism, it's more difficult to assert a collective racist consciousness on behalf of baseball fans (outside of St. Louis, at least). But the aftertaste feels undeniable here: popular sentiments about players, and in this case broadcasters, dominated as they are by white opinions, are often times tinged with a familiar-tasting poison that just so happens to be mixed in with other, more innocuous flavors. Anyone who knows me knows I'm highly susceptible to even the slightest trace of poison.
