Monday, March 29, 2004
Dream Job: Blogger
What an exciting opportunity it has been, to have my dream job: To be a blogger, and get paid for it. And I haven't even done any work in almost three weeks!
What? I don't get paid for this? Awwww, that's crap-a-zoidal.
Okay, so the Dream Job is actually ESPN SportsCenter anchor. And congrats to Mike Hall, who, despite being America's choice to get booted the first night, defeated a tough (and quite similar) Aaron Levine, a shaggy Zachariah Selwyn, and a peppy and occasionally attractive Maggie Haskins to win the coveted year's work in Hartford last night on the ESPN reality show.
I have two beefs:
During the play-by-play segment, Mike was given the video clip of Kirk Gibson's home run to narrate. Not do highlights of, but call as though he were seeing it for the first time. My question is this: Why on earth was he given props for talking the entire time Gibson was rounding the bases? The truly great play-by-play man would have made a quick comment after the ball left the yard for the game-winner, and then...
...shut the hell up.
No play-by-play man should EVER think anything he had to say in a situation like that could tell more of a story than could the visual of Gibson's trotting around the bases with two bad legs, the Dodgers celebration at home plate, the thundering throng cheering wildly, the A's leaving the field dejectedly. Vin Scully knew that. His call was "High fly ball into right field, she is gone!!!!" and then nothing for at least a minute.
Of course, it's tough on its own to call a play you have seen over and over as though it were the first time you'd seen it and had no idea what had happened. Not to mention as an amateur with a million people watching.
Mike beats out Aaron in the final two, and then it's off two the chair for trivia questions which would determine his salary. They start him off at $70K a year then add $5k for each question he gets right (and would have subtracted $10K if he had gotten one wrong and ended it there).
So the first two questions were gimmes: Who won last year's NBA championship, and who did Roger Clemens throw the bat at? That's an easy extra ten grand a year.
The third question, though, was, just simply, wrong. As read by Stuart Scott, the question was, "What was the last Major League Baseball stadium to install lights for night games?" Mike quickly responded, "Wrigley Field," and Stuart Scott told him he was right. But Mike was not right. Wrigley Field installed its lights for the 1988 season. The San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies had brand new stadiums built and completed for THIS season. So the answer should have been either San Diego's Petco Park or Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park, whichever one actually had its lights installed more recently. If the folks at ESPN had been truly devilish, they would have subtracted $10,000 for Mike's salary, given him a Simpsons-eqsue "HAAA haaa!" and immediately taken away his Swingline stapler.
As it was, they let "Wrigley Field" stand, and then they asked him what color sweater does Tiger Woods typically wear on the last day of a golf tournament (red) and then how many Grand Slam titles does Andre Agassi have (eight), at which point Mike had to stop at $95,000 a year. Not bad. That's, like, fifty low-end high-def widescreen TVs. I could deal.
As it is, I do this for free. For you.
What? I don't get paid for this? Awwww, that's crap-a-zoidal.
Okay, so the Dream Job is actually ESPN SportsCenter anchor. And congrats to Mike Hall, who, despite being America's choice to get booted the first night, defeated a tough (and quite similar) Aaron Levine, a shaggy Zachariah Selwyn, and a peppy and occasionally attractive Maggie Haskins to win the coveted year's work in Hartford last night on the ESPN reality show.
I have two beefs:
During the play-by-play segment, Mike was given the video clip of Kirk Gibson's home run to narrate. Not do highlights of, but call as though he were seeing it for the first time. My question is this: Why on earth was he given props for talking the entire time Gibson was rounding the bases? The truly great play-by-play man would have made a quick comment after the ball left the yard for the game-winner, and then...
...shut the hell up.
No play-by-play man should EVER think anything he had to say in a situation like that could tell more of a story than could the visual of Gibson's trotting around the bases with two bad legs, the Dodgers celebration at home plate, the thundering throng cheering wildly, the A's leaving the field dejectedly. Vin Scully knew that. His call was "High fly ball into right field, she is gone!!!!" and then nothing for at least a minute.
Of course, it's tough on its own to call a play you have seen over and over as though it were the first time you'd seen it and had no idea what had happened. Not to mention as an amateur with a million people watching.
Mike beats out Aaron in the final two, and then it's off two the chair for trivia questions which would determine his salary. They start him off at $70K a year then add $5k for each question he gets right (and would have subtracted $10K if he had gotten one wrong and ended it there).
So the first two questions were gimmes: Who won last year's NBA championship, and who did Roger Clemens throw the bat at? That's an easy extra ten grand a year.
The third question, though, was, just simply, wrong. As read by Stuart Scott, the question was, "What was the last Major League Baseball stadium to install lights for night games?" Mike quickly responded, "Wrigley Field," and Stuart Scott told him he was right. But Mike was not right. Wrigley Field installed its lights for the 1988 season. The San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies had brand new stadiums built and completed for THIS season. So the answer should have been either San Diego's Petco Park or Philadelphia's Citizens Bank Park, whichever one actually had its lights installed more recently. If the folks at ESPN had been truly devilish, they would have subtracted $10,000 for Mike's salary, given him a Simpsons-eqsue "HAAA haaa!" and immediately taken away his Swingline stapler.
As it was, they let "Wrigley Field" stand, and then they asked him what color sweater does Tiger Woods typically wear on the last day of a golf tournament (red) and then how many Grand Slam titles does Andre Agassi have (eight), at which point Mike had to stop at $95,000 a year. Not bad. That's, like, fifty low-end high-def widescreen TVs. I could deal.
As it is, I do this for free. For you.
