Fox Has Clue

No, not as team owners, are you on drugs or what?

But as producers of baseball television, Fox has no peer. You'd think an organization as together in one area of a business would have a thimble full of a clue in another, but what are you gonna do?

The Division Series, the Championship Series, the World Series, were as usual, all broadcast beautifully. Yes, most of their shows are moronic, and sure, Fox News Channel is an abomination, but in this one area of the world, TV baseball, Fox gets it.

Say what you will about Tim McCarver. Yeah, he talks too much and invariably says something stupid almost nightly, but all in all, McCarver is smart, funny and is the best analyst going. Joe Buck's good enough.

The weak link for Fox is Thom Brennaman, who thinks that absolutely everything related to anything that is baseball, in every single aspect of every element of every game is "outstanding," when in reality not everything can be outstanding.

Steve Lyons and Kevin Kennedy and Jeanne Zelasko are all great at what they do, and Zelasko looks cool with that new doo, so there's that.

Fox's use of active players as a third voice in the booth is half-right. Bret Boone is generally lame chiming in with a sentence once every inning or two, while Al Leiter shines naturally…

It's all good over at ESPN. Chris Berman and Harold Reynolds and Tony Gwynn and Rick Sutcliffe and Jon Miller were all great in their postseason roles, and at least for this reporter, Berman captures the excitement of the World Series perfectly.

Joe Morgan still has trouble with the language and his "Barry this, Barry that, here a Barry, there a Barry, everywhere a Barry, Barry" routine gets older by the minute, but his baseball insights are always solid.

Not sure If ESPN sent out a memo announcing Peter Gammons' firing or if they just decided that less is better, but we thank them for their consideration…

Kudos to the Los Angeles Times for its Series coverage too, as usual. Bill Plaschke is another guy who takes a lot of heat, but I like him, and Bill Shaikin is simply the best game story writer the Times has had in decades. Journalist Bill oughta put him on the Dodger beat next season.

And hey, thanks to Larry Stewart for running my Al Kaline/Alkaline battery thought in "The Morning Briefing." I'd missed it completely, and when the Portland Oregonian picked it up a few days later, a couple guys I know in Portland turned me onto it. What startled me is that I actually know two guys in Portland….

Howard Cole