Renaissance on basic cable

After five days of playoff baseball this is no longer a novel or unique insight among fans, but goshdarnit, it's sincere: TBS is a hell of a station to watch a ballgame on.

As if it weren't already hard enough to sit through a Fox-broadcasted game of even moderate importance, TBS has to go and render Fox all but unwatchable with their competent announcing crews and understated production values. Ted Turner & Friends mercifully realize that the following features are unnecessary when presenting playoff-quality baseball to the masses:

//computer-animated baseball-playing robots next to the line score
//cameras embedded in the ground in front of home plate
//melodramatic, overlong montages during pregame
//planting stars of the network's original programming in the crowd for convenient plugs
//calling players of central importance by the wrong name
//Jeanne Zelasko in any significant role

And that's just off the top of my head. TBS ain't flawless; the lead-off graphic at first base strikes me as redundant, the incessant Frank TV ads almost make me think they couldn't find enough sponsors to fill the air, and as my sister hilariously pointed out a few weeks ago, their logo looks kinda like a pair of briefs. They were also frighteningly quick with a Steve Bartman flashback when a foul pop drifted to that area of Wrigley Field in tonight's NLDS game 3.

But that's all small potatoes when compared with the technology-fueled disaster that is MLB on Fox. TBS keeps it simple and smart. I guess to hope that other networks will follow suit is naive.