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TV sports are way too graphic
Posted: Thursday October 14, 1999 01:37 PM
Today's topic is toast. Not the stuff that sets off your smoke detector in the morning, the room service item that costs you $13.99 or what Brett Favre makes out of cornerbacks each week. No, this term refers to the tiny area of your television set that remains clear and unencumbered by all the junk graphics, telestrator scribblings, stats, live stock quotes and advertisements that are now plastered all over the screen during every game. I've talked about this before, but, as usual, no one listened. So now we're left to watch sports on a screen that looks like your front windshield after driving through a swarm of locusts. Forget video games and movies and media, I think sports on television has become way too graphic. For starters, there's the obligatory see-through station emblem in the lower-right-hand corner (God forbid you should forget who is responsible for forcing you to watch Dan Dierdorf ); the scrolling text that takes up the bottom third of the screen (this is so we can keep up with the latest scores, athlete arrests and Jesse Ventura quotes); and, of course, the mute sign so that I don't have to hear all the John Madden wannabes or another shameless plug by Al Michaels for some ESPN hotdog stand. This is television, folks -- run by the same geniuses who let people like Nate Newton and myself (at least until this column runs) appear before you to comment on sporting events. If one show about angst-ridden, rich, teenaged vampire-killer cloggers is good, you'll get six. If one graphic will do, six is even better. These days everybody also has that little doohickey in the upper-left-hand corner that keeps you appraised of things like the score, time on the clock, baserunners and the inning -- or, in other words, the kind of stuff it would take a third-grader 30 seconds to find out by ACTUALLY WATCHING THE GAME. "Sweet, I think Doug Flutie just scored, but, wait, I can't tell, the ball went behind the Budweiser, Your TV is On graphic." Let me say this -- if you need a telestrator operated by a retired jock to help you figure out the complicated intricacies of a quarterback sneak, or a glowing yellow line that looks like a radiation leak running across the screen to remind you where your team is headed, then I only have one question for you: Who helped you turn your TV on? This senseless barrage of graphics is the dumbest thing to come to television since the VH1 Behind the Music show. Way off the subject here, but is it me or does every one of those shows go like this: loner, misfit teens form a band, drive around in a dirty van for three years playing gigs for no money, get tricked into signing a terrible record deal, make it big, sue someone (agent, manager, label or all three), suffer some horrible tragedy, abuse something (drugs, alcohol, spouse, or all three) bottom out, wind up in somewhere (grave, jail, rehab or all three), fall off the face of the earth, lose something (hair, money, pride or all three), then play a reunion tour? O.K., back to the column. In football, there are graphics for penalty flags, just in case you missed the seven or eight that were thrown by the referees. In the NHL the graphics aren't too bad, at least until those idiotic, dancing, cartoon robots come out to signal that a goal has been scored. I've seen basketball games where the action has actually been shifted to a little box so that all the other junk can fit on the screen. What we need is a graphic that tells us how many brain cells we're wasting watching the World's Strongest Man competition. Or how about a continuous scroll of the things we could be doing rather than watching that fifth football game? ...play with your kids...exercise...read...vote...talk to your spouse...recycle...pet the dog...find out what WHYLO means... Correct me if I'm wrong, but was one of the giant, obtrusive graphics on Monday Night Football this week actually designed to look like some kind of space station with little people on it? I'm serious. And my next question is, can we put some of these blow-dried, self-absorbed apologists holding mikes on there? Again, I'm serious. The problem is that with all these graphics smeared all over the place, the viewing space on the large-screen TV you just mortgaged your house for has been reduced to the size of a piece of toast. There is one solution to all of this, although I doubt we're ready for it as a sports-viewing society: We could, I guess, all just learn to pay attention. WHYLO of the WeekWell, we've got a problem. I knew this would happen. This week I received so many bizarre, mean-spirited, flat-out-stupid e-mails that I just couldn't pick one for WHYLO of the Week. So I want you to do it. Read these nominees and vote for one. Mike Goulds of Incline Village, Nev., will introduce our first WHYLO nominee : I read your comments about the behavior at the Ryder Cup and could not agree more. What is your opinion of the disgraceful behavior of the fans at the NFL game when Michael Irvin of Dallas was injured? What sort of mentality do people have who celebrate when somebody gets hurt, possibly seriously? Do we wonder why society is aggressive and violent? Two days ago I actually heard someone brag about how when Michael Irvin got hurt he stood in his living room, presumably in front of his children, and cheered, hoping for the worst. There is no gray area here, people. If you did this you are a scumbag. Anyone who would cheer when any athlete, even the biggest jerk on the planet, gets hurt is a scumbag. Period. So, WHYLO nominee No. 1 is the fans in Philadelphia who cheered when Irvin was hurt. Now, I'm just guessing here, but I bet these are the same kinds of people who believe American athletes can behave any way they like as long as they win. What do you think, WHYLO nominee No. 2 Lance Rucks? BOTTOM LINE YOU PLAY TO WIN FIRST AND BE A GENTLEMAN LAST. I GUESS THAT IS WHY YOU LIKE TO WRITE ABOUT SPORTS SINCE YOU NEVER EITHER PLAYED OR WERE GOOD AT ANYTHING BUT CRITICIZING OTHERS PERFORMANCES. YOU ARE ENTITLED TO YOUR VIEWS EVEN THOUGH THEY SUCK!!!! The old, faithful you-never-played-sports-so-you-don't-know-what-you're-talking-about e-mail is the dumbest, most trite, hackneyed response I get. For starters, it doesn't apply here. But more important, it's like hearing someone say, "Wow, what beautiful weather we're having today" and getting up in their face screaming "ARE YOU A TRAINED METEOROLOGIST? NO? WELL, THEN WHAT THE HELL DO YOU KNOW ABOUT THE WEATHER, PAL? SHUT THE HELL UP!" In doofus quotient this e-mail trails only the "you have intellectually befuddled me so I will write in a nasty personal attack" letter, the "do your homework" classic and the "you're just trying to get hits" note. And you people accuse athletes of using a lot of clichés? WHYLO nominee No. 3 is Gary Opala from Amherst, N.Y., who writes: Your comments on the American Ryder Cup team's behavior is way out of bounds especially coming from an American (if you are). I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one that thinks you can't write and is an idiot. Oh, Gary, I just hate it when I can't write and is an idiot. WHYLO nominee No. 4 is David Spampinato, who just made one tiny error, he got MY COUNTRY OF ORIGIN WRONG. The easy thing here is to write that you clearly have no idea about golf, Americans and passion because you are from Canada. But I won't because you are from Canada and that is understood. It's just a shame that someone gives you a vehicle to voice your opinion. I like Mike Weir a lot and root for him all the time, but I am going to stop now because I don't like you. WHYLO nominee No. 5 is Vinod Kirpalani from Hong Kong , who accused the Ryder Cup golf team of being high on drugs. I want to know if there is any screening process for performance enhancement drugs in "professional" golf. Some of the players certainly looked high on more than adrenaline. I have no idea if they test golfers or not, Vinod, but sometimes I wish we could test readers. Billy Sugino from Santa Barbara, Calif., is WHYLO nominee No. 6 because, quite frankly, he is so concerned about showing how bright he is (and we all know how obnoxious that can be; just refer to the previous 50 FlemFiles), I can't tell what his freakin' point is. Cicero once stated, "Ilium Cum Dignitate". Leisure with dignity. While I subscribe to this axiom while "participating" in sports, as an observer I allow myself more latitude. The beauty of watching Sports is that we can be myopic; clinging to some primitive notion that gives us the right to scream uncontrollably for a team or individual who has nothing in common with us, save geography, place or birth, or ethnicity. With this in mind, I sense there is a place for a "Jerry Springer" of sport journalism. A forum for "shock" narratives. A place for those with double digit IQs to vent. (Note: My latest Stanford Binet test has me barely cracking the century mark.) You have saved dozens, perhaps hundreds of postal workers. I read your column faithfully. You serve your purpose well. It would be interesting to see the number of hits your column gets per week. "Just get hits, baby, hits." Reading the e-mail responses always makes laugh. Though sometimes thought provoking, it usually serves as a catharsis. I must say, that your line, "We said COYOTE, you idiot, not PEYOTE!" made me chuckle. Finally, although I got a, um, chuckle out of this email, WHYLO nominee No. 7 is Mark Schantz from Oklahoma City, just for the pure "out there" quality of his question. O.K., this is totally random. But if you ever happen to be writing about the Raiders, could you throw in how Jon Gruden (is that his name) looks exactly like Chucky from Child's Play when he stands scowling on the sideline? I swear he does. Your column is great. I'm a big fan. Bye. Sports Illustrated staff writer David Fleming explores the sometimes weird and wacky side of sports every Thursday. Click here to send an e-mail to Flem, or address it yourself: flemfile@aol.com. The opinions expressed here are solely those of the writer.
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