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Coming up next, Frank Deford!
Posted: Tuesday October 13, 1998 05:33 PM
I am very upset that I don't have a pre-game show for
this, my weekly commentary. You see, every event of any
consequence in sports now has a pre-game show. And if NPR
got me a pre-commentary show, then Bob Edwards could say:
Frank Deford's commentary will follow the pre-commentary
show, and some experts could come on then, and argue how my
commentaries have been lately, and how exactly they expect
me to do this morning. Some authority might even
say: This is a must-win commentary for
Deford! A pre-game show that doesn't talk about a must-win
situation is simply a pre-game show that has lost its
bearings.
Pre-game shows, as we know them, started a couple of
decades ago, Sundays on CBS. The original featured a very
diverse cast, including Jimmy The Greek, who picked games,
and Phyllis George, who provided the women's angle.
Now, unfortunately, no matter how many pre-game shows there
are, they all duplicate themselves. There is a professional
sports announcer host and a bunch of loud ex-players or a
few ex-coaches who are between jobs. It's all very inside
stuff. The host
starts off a question, usually by saying: "What about
... ?"
Like: What about the
Oilers? Or,
What about that John Elway?
And then all the ex-players jump in with their opinions.
Everybody talks very fast, because if you take a breath,
somebody else will swamp you. The Fox baseball pre-game
show actually has an ex-player on it they call
"Psycho," with his expertise
portion called "Psycho Analysis." Also, the pace on
all shows is accelerated by a lot of kind of laser noises,
which are employed instead of periods and
commas.
Pre-game shows are so popular that ESPN has a football
pre-game show Sunday even though it doesn't have any games
that follow the pre-game show. ESPN's big brother, ABC,
has also added a pre-game prime-time show this year to
Monday Night Football.
What about ...
that?
Football fans certainly do have a choice, though. The ESPN
pre-game show makes up for the fact that it has no games,
post-show, by being very frantic. The host is Chris
Berman, an announcer known—accurately—as Boomer.
Boomer dispenses a lot of
cross-cultural pop references about music and movies. But
everybody else on ESPN is terribly intense, trying to get a
word in
edgewise.
The closest alternative is
Fox NFL
Sunday, which comes from Hollywood. In fact, the correspondents
say: "And now, back to Hollywood"—which
doesn't sound properly footballish to me. Anyway, the Fox
pre-game is hosted by James Brown, a Harvard man, who is
known as J.B. He acts sort of like the
social chairman at a frat party, and sometimes, even, J.B.
and the old jocks go out on a little artificial-turf
football field in the studio and run plays. Any moment you
expect the guys to goose each other and tap a keg. The
roundup portion is called
"Check It Out!" and J.B screams: "Coming up!
Coming at you!" My head
spins.
In contrast, there is CBS's
The
NFL Today, the granddaddy, which is now hosted by Jim Nantz, who is
known as ... Jim. It's by far the most sober-sided show,
and sometimes, even, the ex-players sit with Nantz around a
little table that has flowers on it. Nantz says "some
kind of" a lot. CBS is
some kind of an escape from the other two
bedlams.
So, hey, what about I get my pre-commentary show, which
would be some kind of way to Check Me Out! Coming Up!
Coming At
You!
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