M's fans deliver graphic reaction to FSN

[Guest MrRant]

Everyone's a cynic. When the telecast of the Mariners-Yankees baseball game Thursday night went without graphic or textual elements for the middle three innings, some friends thought Fox Sports Net had done it on the spur of the moment to keep viewers from fleeing a game that had become a Yankee romp.

 

They figured that by not showing the score summary or any other information on the screen, FSN was trying to retain viewers who otherwise would bolt to "Friends" or "SpongeBob SquarePants."

 

Relax, dear misanthropes. While it's true the Yankees were up 10-3 in the top of the fourth, the plan was in the works long before Freddy Garcia set the modern record for frequent tattooing. FSN executive producer Tom Feuer says the experiment was an inexpensive way to start a dialogue with Mariners fans and to find out what they want in their baseball telecasts. It's one of several features the regional cable channel hopes to implement during each homestand this season, including but not limited to:

 

 

Wiring three fans at a game so they can communicate with the booth announcers.

 

 

Making the director's chatter in the control truck audible at home via the secondary audio programming (SAP) signal on most TV sets.

 

 

Returning to the look of yesteryear by getting principal game shots from a camera behind home plate rather than in center field.

 

 

Placing a handheld camera in the stands for a fan's-eye view.

 

 

Going a few innings without instant replay.

 

According to most of the 2,500 messages that arrived before FSN's e-mail server wilted under the onslaught Thursday night, one thing viewers desperately want is their graphics back. At least the graphic element that continuously shows the score, the ball-strike count, the number of outs and how many men on are base.

 

 

 

No big surprise there. Since Fox introduced the on-screen scoreboard during a football game in 1994, the "Fox Box" has become a standard piece of sports television on any network, as ubiquitous and necessary as sunflower seeds in the dugout.

 

FSN staffers in Bellevue were still tabulating and checking for hanging chads yesterday -- the vote total had reached 3,000 -- but Feuer said there's little question the voice of the people is virtually united on the Fox Box issue.

 

"An overwhelming majority love the strip at the top of the screen," Feuer said. "But some other things they can live without."

 

Me too. I liked the three-inning experiment, even the missing Fox Box (though I'd never be able to live without it permanently). The biggest surprise from the absence of screen clutter was a calming influence quite distinct from the languor-inducing effect of the Yankees' 10-run third inning. The TV screen seemed bigger, the telecast less frantic. As one viewer on Whidbey Island said in an e-mail to FSN: "It brings the game closer. It's like a front-row seat!"

 

Of course, conventional wisdom among programmers holds that younger viewers want and need clutter, that they actually find the 87 different "entry points" on the screen during a typical CNN newscast to be informative and not the least bit distracting.

 

All that creeping and crawling and flashing of information makes me, a child of the '50s, cross-eyed and dizzy, but I haven't been in TV's prime target demographic for a few years now, so what do they care about a geezer with vision and balance issues?

 

All the more reason to applaud FSN's willingness to play around with its telecast, especially to consider that less might be more.

 

Yes, it's gimmickry. But so were the Fox Box and all the other graphical gewgaws that emerged when new technology made them available. Some gimmicks prove useful, such as the superimposed first-down line we've come to expect on football telecasts. Others are there simply because someone with a laptop and a special-effects generator said, "Hey, guys, get a load of this!"

 

Viewers can rest assured the Fox Box isn't going anywhere (they can still weigh in at foxsports.com by entering "Mariners Feedback" in the keyword section). But as for other text elements that show up on the screen every few seconds, Feuer says, "I'd definitely consider cutting back on what we do."

 

Bravo to that.

 

My own needs are simple: the Fox Box (though I prefer the corner-style rectangle to Fox's strip across the top), the hitter's current batting average when he comes to the plate, and the "due up" graphic at the end of each half-inning. Much of the rest I'd entrust to the announcers.

 

Ideally, this would make color commentators more colorful and less repetitive. For instance, I'm happy to find out from an announcer what the Mariners' record is on Tuesday nights when the Safeco Field roof is open, the wind is blowing out and Jamie Moyer hasn't shaved in two days. I don't need to see it on a graphic that obscures half the screen.

 

That probably makes me a throwback to the days of black-and-white telecasts, but I'm odd that way.

 

I prefer to watch a baseball game, not read it.

[Guest Smues]

That text-free part of the game was terrible. Thank god everyone else hated it too.

[Guest alkeiper]

Fox wants to improve baseball broadcasts? How about not pimping your goddamned Fall lineup every 30 seconds. No more "fan cam" with a stupid song displaying stupid fans on a Saturday afternoon. Show the game. Don't switch camera shots so freakin' often. Find a shot, settle on it, and let me enjoy my baseball in peace.

[HurriShane 0]

I thought that the reason there was no graphics during that game wqas because the M's were getting it handed ot them by the Yankees. Also, why would they do this in a game against the Yankees and not a team like the Indians that nobody really cares about?

[Guest Redhawk]

I could REALLY live without the Fox Box or ESPN's Bottom Line or any of the 24-hour nonstop sports tickers. I can't stand watching a highlight package of a game I missed on, say, NFL Primetime, and they show the final score of the game before the highlight package gets to it. Just kills all the suspense. If I NEED to know the score right now, I'll get on the Internet.

 

Wiring three fans at a game so they can communicate with the booth announcers.

 

And what exactly would this accomplish? "Well, Joe, it's the bottom of the fifth inning, Mariners down 6-3....and it looks like Amy from Marysville thinks the M's should put in Kazu Sasaki. Okay, we'll alert Bob Melvin."

 

Making the director's chatter in the control truck audible at home via the secondary audio programming (SAP) signal on most TV sets.

 

Why? "Camera four! Switch to camera four! What's this shit on the keyboard? Who the fuck left their sandwich! Hey, do a cut shot to the big-tittied chick along the 1st base line."

 

Returning to the look of yesteryear by getting principal game shots from a camera behind home plate rather than in center field.

 

Isn't that what they do during spring training games? That always annoyed me, because you always lose the flight of the ball when it's hit in the air. I don't see what's wrong with the CF camera.

 

Placing a handheld camera in the stands for a fan's-eye view.

 

If I wanted a fan's view I'd go to the game. One reason I'm watching on TV is for the better view.

 

Going a few innings without instant replay.

 

Why?

[Guest The Tino Standard]

I like the rectangle score box in the upper corner of the screen instead of the bar across the entire top. That bar takes up too much of the screen.

 

If they are hell-bent on keeping on the full bar, put it on the bottom of the screen. It would be less intrusive.