STEAL FIRST, SAC BUNT, SAC BUNT, SAC FLY FOR THE SCORE. WHAT COULD GO WRONG? It was, perhaps, inevitable that we wouldn't be into the double digits on comments about Game 1 of the World Series before somebody teed off on the execrable Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. But that's a rite of fall, every bit as important to our national identity as trick-or-treating, standard time, and turkey on Thanksgiving. What's new this year is that Fox brought Ozzie Guillen onto the broadcast team.
I'm fairly certain that one fact explains this hiring decision (as well as McCarver's continued employment): Fox lacks the money to send armies of trained monkeys to your homes to ring the doorbell and fling poo in your eyes when you answer, so the far cheaper alternative, no less poo-flingier, is to inflict the maximum amount of Ozzie Guillen.
I may be unqualified to say this, since I only caught the last half-inning, and therefore saw no more of Guillen than that he was there. That alone was jarring. For him to be standing on the field in a suit, somebody at Fox presumably had to take the official position that Guillen's presence had at least a theoretical possibility of enhancing one's enjoyment or understanding of the World Series. This is inconceivable.
What evidence is there that Ozzie Guillen understands baseball? Well, he played it. Of course, he played it incredibly badly. In 16 years, Guillen posted an OPS of .626 (never exceeding the appropriate .666 for a full season). He had twelve seasons with an on base percentage under .300. In his best offensive season, Guillen was 15% worse than average; over his full 16 seasons, he was 32% worse than the average offensive player. Those numbers are very, very bad. They could reflect either a lack of talent or an inability to understand that getting on base -- and not making an out -- is a positive thing. Whether the former had anything to do with his offensive failures, Guillen has adopted the latter as his fundamental managing philosophy. He has not been the worst manager in baseball over his tenure (ahem: Hargrove), but he is certainly among those most hostile to any understanding of the game that feeds him. And before anybody says "but he managed a team to a World Series title," if he made any positive contributions to that team -- that is, if they won because of him rather than despite him -- it must have been in the chemistry/intangible department (and therefore not helpful to a broadcast team), because he is openly and adamantly committed to counterproductive in-game strategies.
So, okay, sometimes it's nice to have these lovable ex-player doofuses on the broadcasts, not to explain the game but just to give some of the flavor and color, right? Well, Ozzie Guillen is the guy who banished a guy to the minors for refusing to throw at an opposing player, and the one who called someone a "fag" and then explained that he couldn't be homophobic because he had tickets to a Madonna concert. Cuddly!
To sum up: Fox hired a jerk who doesn't understand baseball to stand around bantering with a bunch of like-minded ignoramuses. Is there any possible way that that was a rational business decision?
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