Truth and consequences
Posted: Wednesday February 24, 1999 12:42 PM
A few weeks ago, while broadcasting the Super Bowl on Fox, John Madden and Pat
Summerall refused to discuss Eugene Robinson's impact on the game until it was
almost over. Robinson, you will recall, had snuck out the night before, to
proposition a streetwalker who turned out to be an undercover cop. The
escapade, at the least, was a diverting influence on the Falcons team, and the
two announcers should have felt compelled to emphasize the issue from the
start.
Obviously, Madden and Summerall -- and their producers -- avoided the nasty
truth because it would have tarnished an event that their network, Fox, had paid
dearly
for.
It was simply another, if egregious, example of how all sports announcers for
games are a little bit
pregnant.
And it reminded me of this time a year ago, when suddenly there was much to do
about the CBS announcers at the Nagano Olympics wearing coats with a Nike swoosh
prominently displayed. I was even approached, emotionally, to sign a petition
protesting this ghastly forfeiture of journalistic
integrity.
You don't understand, I replied. This is the way sports announcing has always
been done. Wearing a sponsor's insignia is just a variation on the theme.
"Aha," snorted the petitioner. "Dan Rather would never do
it."
No, I responded. But, then, CBS News doesn't own the Supreme Court when it
covers it, as CBS Sports owned the Nagano Olympics. CBS News doesn't own the
Caribbean hurricane season, as CBS Sports does the Final
Four.
Announcers for games are always caught in the middle. Just as Madden and
Summerall erred too much on the side of the house, Tim McCarver just lost his
job announcing Mets games for being too independent. The same thing happened to
Jon Miller a year ago. The Orioles fired him for being too negative -- which is
to say: too honest. Miller was just voted into the National Sportswriters and
Sportscasters Hall of Fame for being too
good.
But, realistically, game announcers can never be altogether at liberty to speak
their minds. Especially this is true of the home team golden throats, like
McCarver and Miller, who are -- directly or indirectly -- paid by the team they
serve. But the mistake that shortsighted teams like the Orioles and Mets make is
thinking that when a broadcaster is honestly critical, it turns away fans. It
doesn't. On the contrary. In sport, love is not blind. A team's fans are more
cognizant of that team's shortcomings than anybody else. If fans think an
announcer is pulling his punches, they lose interest. They want a broadcaster
to raise some
hackles.
Of course, a lot of critics rail at announcers for being "homers."
But if you work for a team, calling every game for eight months a year, it's
human nature to identify yourself with your club. In fact, I think it's honest
when the announcer falls into the first-person plural. We win! We lose!
Hey, that's
OK.
Enthusiasm can coexist with honesty. The best announcers love their team, even
as they criticize their team. Of course, they also don't ever forget that it's
sports.
Bill Veeck was perhaps the one sports executive who was most in favor of a free
and unfettered press. But one April day in Chicago, Veeck called in Jimmy
Piersall, his announcer, who had made note of the rather obvious fact that it
happened to be chilly at Comiskey. "I want to tell you something,
Jimmy," Veeck said. "It's never cold at the ball
park."
These commentaries, which appear each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition, are posted weekly by CNN/SI.
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