Gus Johnson is known for some of his outstanding calls on CBS broadcasts, particularly his enthusiastic work during March Madness. In fact, it was only back in week one that he absolutely nailed the call of the Broncos last second miracle play by Brandon Stokley to beat the Bengals. While Gus is at his best reacting to the unpredictable action in front of him, he had a lapse in judgment when he used what seemed like was a “scripted” line while describing the first of Titans running back Chris Johnson’s touchdown runs on Sunday. When Chris broke away for the score, Gus’ description was “He’s got getting away from the cops speed!” Wait for the second run by Chris in this video to hear it.

Putting aside that the league is so image conscious that Roger Goodell enforces strict penalties for players who get into trouble with the law, this is just a stupid thing to say all the way around. I’m guessing that the last thing Chris Johnson, who to the best of my knowledge has never had any legal issues, wanted was to have the announcers compare his football run to that of someone escaping the police. Gus owes Chris an apology and should know better than that. Furthermore, the argument that it’s OK because it’s a black announcer saying it about another black person is ludicrous; such an analogy should never be invoked if it has no factual basis, which in Chris’ case, it doesn’t. If that was meant to be funny, I don’t see the humor in it.

Video courtesy of Awful Announcing, of course

Whether it’s been BCS games or baseball playoffs, we’ve often complained about FOX TV overproducing sporting events. Not to say that I or many others don’t have short attention spans, but it seems to me that along with showing you sports, FOX’s goal is to give you A.D.D. if you don’t already have it. This sentiment goes hand-in-hand with my often used mantra that less is more. Maybe FOX has finally learned that lesson given what happened in Game 3 of the World Series on Saturday night.

The Phillies were up 3-0 early and cruising until the controversy in the 4th. After a Johnny Damon flyout and a walk to Teixeira, A-Rod sliced a ball down the right field line, just inside the foul pole. In a Jeffrey Maier moment, the ball hit a FOX TV camera that was poking out over the fence (you can see it in the image above). The umpires later ruled the ball was on its way out so they awarded Alex Rodriguez with a two-run home run to make it 3-2 Phillies. The TV camera and the subsequent ruling seemed to have cost the Phillies a run. Even if the ball were heading out, there’s no reason why a camera should be sticking out over the fence onto the field. Sure it’s a million-to-one shot, but it happened, and FOX looks bad because of it. Maybe they realize now that it’s not about how many cameras you have (and at the least, to make sure they’re not interfering with the play), but about not screwing up the action. That home run by A-Rod snapped his slump and sparked the Yankees offense. They can thank FOX and the umpires for it.

UPDATE: The hit was ruled a home run because the ground rules had been agreed upon prior to the game and they said if a ball hit a camera it would be a homer.

The way MLB schedules playoff game start times often doesn’t make much sense. For instance, when the Rockies/Phillies game was postponed on Saturday because of poor weather conditions in Denver you figure they would bump the game to a time when better conditions were expected. Naturally they moved Game 3 to Sunday night because the weather in Denver is much nicer at 10pm than it is at say 3pm, right? Well it seems like similar logic was applied when scheduling a few of the LCS game start times. MLB decided it wanted to start games earlier rather than later to cater towards a young audience (supposedly). Well the price of making the games more East-Coast friendly is the Dodger and Angel fans get screwed. Let me explain.

The Game 2 start time for the Dodgers/Phillies on Friday (as pointed out by my buddy Luis) is 1:07pm PT. I realize that the recession has a higher portion of the state unemployed but come on! How can you start a freaking NLCS game during lunch time when most Dodger fans are at work? Are you serious? How about this for a change — have both games start at 7:07pm local time meaning the Angels/Yankees begins at 7pm ET and the Dodgers/Phillies begins at 10pm ET. The only people really getting hurt are Phillies fans since they have to stay up late to watch the game but it’s a Friday night. This still would work out well for TBS and FOX because they would get more of the NY and LA markets in prime time.

The exact same scenario happens on Monday hurting Angel fans on the West Coast that want to watch the game. They’ll likely be working during the 4:13pm ET start time. Someone please explain to me the logic in starting a League Championship Series game at 1pm for the local fans? Honestly, who decides these things?

The MLB playoffs are here which means for baseball fans, the TV will be set to TBS for the duration of October. Anyone who watched the Twins/Tigers 163rd game on Tuesday and/or the lineup of games on Wednesday got a taste of what the next month will be like. And by that I mean a lot of blood clot medicine ads, enlarged prostate ads, Charles Schwab commercials, Ernie Johnson dancing shoes spots, and TBS programming promos. Lots of them.

Last year we had nothing but Frank TV spots jammed down our throats to the point where it was impossible not to hate the guy. It’s nothing personal against Caliendo because he’s a talented, humorous comedian, but the bosses at TBS need to understand that enough’s enough — feeling like one of those whack-a-moles at the arcade sucks. Last year they ruined Frank Caliendo for me and now they’re doing the same thing by wearing out George Lopez.

It’s only been two days of the playoffs and I’m already sick of the guy. How many times are the people going to crusade to his house demanding he start his show? And if you decide you’re going to hammer home these promos, could you at least have the decency to film a variety of them so we get to feel like we’re watching a different one each time? Also, a little advice for the TBS execs: if you’re going to hype up the show then you have to begin airing the show during the baseball playoffs while you have the audience. What’s the point of pumping us up constantly only to wait until November when your audience is watching the World Series on FOX, and being reminded to watch House instead (is that a FOX show?)? I used to think George Lopez was El Mas Chingon. Not anymore. Too bad.

Seems like we come to this point every single year. Why on Earth is the Little League World Series shown on TV? Someone please explain to me why any of us (outside of friends, classmates, and family) should actually care about a bunch of 11 and 12-year-olds playing baseball? Why are regional rounds now televised? Why are their scores and highlights filling up my shows (other than because they’re ESPN properties)? I don’t want to watch these kids play just because it’s the “Little League World Series” any more than I would want to go down to West LA Little League on my free time to go watch some 11 and 12-year-olds throw the ball around. The Little League World Series has been good for three things and three things only: Danny Almonte, fat Sean Burroughs, and Derek Bell still having bags under his eyes at age 12. Oh yeah, it’s also been good for the following lesson in excellent sportsmanship, brought to you by our friends from Deadspin. This kid must have learned from Brad Penny how to pout:

Remind me again why I’m supposed to be interested in this? Does ESPN realize they’re making this kid suicidal? Do they enjoy televising tears on the faces of 11-year-old Japanese kids? I guess so.

Something must be done to stop this ghastly man! Seriously, for anyone who said it was “mean-spirited” to create a website called Fire Joe Morgan, you’ve never watched Sunday Night Baseball otherwise you would understand why it was launched. And clearly after lies three years in a row, ESPN isn’t getting the message so it’s up to us to let them know we won’t take it. Anyway, getting to the point, last week on June 14th when the Cardinals were playing the Indians, Cliff Lee took a no-hitter into the 8th inning. That prompted commentator Joe Morgan to tell a story from his playing days about a pitcher on his team who had a no-hitter going.

Morgan said he advised pitcher Don Wilson to walk the great Hank Aaron before trying to seal the final out of a no-hitter. Wilson, according to the story, told Morgan to go back to second base, and Wilson proceeded to strike out Aaron for the no-hitter. History tells us that Wilson did indeed throw a no-hitter against the Braves but the only problem is that Morgan wasn’t playing that day which makes his little story (about suggesting the pitcher walk the tough hitter) a complete lie. Thanks to some of the blogs and astute listeners out there playing watch dog, Morgan was caught (once again) and he felt compelled to address the situation on Sunday Night Baseball between the Angels and Dodgers on June 21st. Here’s what he said:

“Jon [Miller], I want to correct something that I said last week — you weren’t here so you weren’t involved — but last week we were talking about Don Wilson pitching a no-hitter and I remember talking to him about Hank Aaron and saying it wouldn’t be the worst thing if he walked him. And he said ‘get away’ and he went out and struck him out. Well it happened in the dugout, not on the field. I got it mixed up with an incident I had with Al Hollins, who in a similar situation was pitching with me at the Giants, so I had the two confused.”

Get that, so Morgan clarifies his lie from last week, saying that the imaginary conversation between him and Wilson regarding Hank Aaron occurred in the dugout this time, not the field. And instead of just admitting that he never had the conversation with Wilson but just got in confused with an incident with Hollins, he told another lie while trying to cover his tracks. He said that the conversation occurred in the dugout. Well, considering that they were mid-inning and that Aaron came up with two outs, it would be pretty hard for Wilson and Morgan to converse in the dugout.

What did Wilson do, ask the umpire for time so he could run to the bench and go over the gameplan with Joe Morgan? Did he suddenly feel a need for sunflower seeds and bubble gum and that’s how he wound up in the dugout mid-inning? Someone explain to me how this “conversation” occurred in the dugout if Wilson was on the hill and one out away from a no-hitter when Hank Aaron came up. Why can’t Morgan just admit he’s wrong and apologize for getting mixed up? Doesn’t ESPN realize how bad he is? He tried to cover up lies with more lies. Somebody please spare us.

UPDATE: A comment from a previous story says Morgan was roaring and raring for another lie on Sunday night. Nice.