Initially the networks probably thought a second person in the television booth at sports events would add insight to games.
The number two person could enlighten newcomers to the fact pro basketball players wear those extremely long and loose shorts because most have ugly thighs.
And football neophytes would learn that a halfback is really a whole person, as are quarterbacks.
And the umpire really determines what a ball and strike are and a batter almost never agrees with a called strike.
A second person on an adjoining microphone can tell us those things. But I’ve had enough color after the first three seconds of any game I’m watching, and that was with two in the booth.
A few years ago all the networks decided a third person was needed to enlighten us on who has a hangnail, what to expect as it relates to field conditions no matter what the conditions are and give us background on everybody on both teams, the poster bearers in the bleachers and the lifetime average of the cotton candy salesman.
Now comes Detroit Pistons playoff games. The network added two more air-filling noisemakers with inside insight from the locker-room. What coaches chose to tell these gadabouts about what they told players was, ‘Whatever you do, pull your shirt out of your shorts on the bench, and take your time tucking it in all the way to your position on the floor. ?
That makes five people networks want you to listen to while YOU’RE WATCHING everything that’s going on. Not only that, prior to the half, during the half and after the game there are up to four more color providers over-talking each other reviewing what we fans have seen played, replayed from four angles and redescribed by the five mouths previously mentioned.
What we’ve been told during these three-hours of game-time, is each of the players in the starting lineup of any of the three major sports is the most outstanding in their position in the league, a shoo-in for all-star honors and sure to make the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
On the rare chance one of these super players happens to have been graduated from high school, they will be picked up in General Motors Expansion Program and head the Cadillac (they’ll reject the Chevrolet offer) division when they retire at age 22.
Perhaps you have the idea by now I’m no fan of color commentators. As reviewers point out, if you don’t like a program, you can always turn it off — and I do. The clicker is always at hand.
Television watchers are referred to as the ‘viewing public.? We are viewers. We realize the noise is there if we choose to hear what we see, but show producers insist on telling us what we are seeing.
If that approach is so good for sports, why aren’t shows like ‘Gone With The Wind? accompanied by someone telling us what Clark Gable is thinking of doing?
Of course, when you see a show with Jack Nicholson you can usually guess what he’s thinking.
So, sports watching has become my silent time. Three hours of lounging in quiet, broken only occasionally when I open the refrigerator door, step on the dog’s tail or flush.
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Idle thought: Except for the tv show ‘Everybody Loves Raymond,? why do bedroom scenes have men in fully covered pajamas tops, and women with stringy shoulder straps, even in ‘Joan of Arcadia??