The Old “Ball” Game

Posted on May 10, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

I have stated many times in this space that I am an unabashed fan of baseball. I loved playing it and I enjoy watching it, especially in person but also on television. I think replay and recent rules changes are ruining it and I am thankful every day, month and year that the designated hitter stays out of the National League. I believe the team with the best record should have home field advantage in the World Series and don’t want the post season wild card series to be best two out of three. But I’m not here today to write about any of that. I’m here to discuss the one thing that makes baseball, baseball. The baseball.

 

I have been watching our national pastime for more than five decades and have recently noticed, more than ever before, the number of baseballs tossed aside by both pitchers, catchers and umpires. Perfectly good, still round, orbs cast into oblivion because an errant sinker, slider or two seam fastball ever so briefly touched the plate, or the dirt around home plate, before finding the catcher’s mitt. The scene has become all too familiar; pitch catches turf, catcher hands ball to ump, ump hands new ball to catcher (or tosses it out to the pitcher himself) then ump tosses the “old” ball toward the home team dugout. It made me wonder how many Rawlings “Official Major League” baseballs signed by commissioner Rob Manfred are put to use during an average MLB game and what in the world happens to the perfectly good baseballs that get the heave ho? Inquiring minds (at least this one) want to know.

 

So I sat down to watch a few games. First up was the Washington Nationals against the Detroit Tigers in Washington. Stephen Strasburg was on the mound for the Nats and it became immediately apparent that a pitcher throwing 95 miles an hour plus fastballs was not conducive to my research. Plenty of foul balls into the stands for souvenirs but fewer pitches in the dirt meant fewer balls tossed away. So I flipped to the Miami Marlins and the Milwaukee Brewers only to find fire balling right hander Jose Fernandez dealing for Miami. I needed to find a game with sinker ballers Mike Pelfrey or Jake Westbrook or Joel Pinero pitching. OR I could just speak with a friend who spends a ton of his time around major league baseball and ask him.

 

Because I am me, I texted instead and got the skinny. According to my source an average of ten dozen baseballs are used during your run of the mill, nine inning, major league baseball game. Then I went to the calculator. There are 30 teams in the big leagues and each plays 162 games during a season. So I multiplied 120 (balls) x 162 (games) x 15 (teams) and came up with 291,600 baseballs per year. Not scientific I am aware but give or take a few balls here and a few balls there that is still a lot of baseballs. My friend added nuggets like all the balls are “rubbed up with Delaware Mud” by an umpire attendant before each game. Of those Delaware rubbed baseballs lets immediately cut the number that are left lying around in half because those end up in the stands as souvenirs thanks to foul balls, home runs and balls tossed to fans, young and old, at the end of every half inning. So now we’re down to somewhere in the neighborhood of 145 thousand baseballs. According to the expert those all end up in batting practice bags all around the league.

Molina foul ball

But I digress. If you watch a lot of baseball games, you can’t help but notice how many “perfectly good baseballs” get tossed into that waiting BP bag. Every time a pitch makes even the slightest contact with the earth it’s deemed “not worthy” by the catcher, the pitcher, the umpire or all three. But a ball blasted off the bat of Buster Posey, that hits both the grass and the dirt as it scoots through the infield into centerfield, for a base hit stays in play. That is until the pitcher throws it in the dirt on the first pitch to the next hitter. Why the double standard? I queried my friend, to which he replied, “No reason. Just stupid habits.”

 

I also found out that the Rawlings factory in Turrialba, Costa Rica produces all the balls used during Major League Baseball games in the United States. Some estimates put the number of baseballs produced by that factory at 1.8 million every year. So it’s clear they have extras to toss out just because of a little blemish. Teams supply 10 dozen baseballs per game, on Monday that meant at least 1,300 white leather spheroids were rubbed up with mud. By contrast 24 footballs are used during an average NFL game (each team is responsible for supplying 12), the NBA only needs three basketballs. Hockey may use as many as 30 pucks a game while a professional golfer goes through between a sleeve (3) and half a dozen Titleists per 18 holes.

 

Bottom line is NO sport makes more, uses more, or indiscriminately consigns more balls to the scrapheap than major league baseball. I guess ultimately the question isn’t why, but why not? Gotta go, a game is on.

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How The LPGA And Its Players Could Make Good… Better

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

I spent several hours of my life the past four days watching LPGA Tour golf on the Golf Channel. A good portion of it was enjoyable, some of it unsatisfactory, and all of it got me thinking. I’ve been in the truck. I know how hard producing a golf tournament for television is but this post is not about critiquing what I watched the past four days. It is a list of some things I think the LPGA and its players could do to make the product more palatable… at least for me.

 

Start Scheduling More Diverse Events

No professional golf tour would benefit more from a schedule that included a variety of formats. It would create some buzz, give sportswriters and pundits a reason to discuss the LPGA in a different way. Put together team events, play different formats, finish on Saturday or Monday. No tour works social media like the LPGA and this would give them more reasons to get messaging out.

 

Stop Marking EVERY Putt Longer Than Six Inches

Few things bog down a telecast or create slow pace of play optics than players putting a coin down behind every putt left for birdie, par, bogey or double. I watched better than 10 hours of LPGA golf the past four days and maybe saw a handful of putts longer than 6 inches brushed in without due delay by a professional golfer. I NEVER saw a player use the toe, the heel or the back of her putter to accomplish the goal. For goodness sake check the both the line and the through line of your fellow competitor then figure out a way to finish the hole. Keep your coin in your pocket or stuck to the magnetic thingy on your cap.

 

Start Having The Leaderboard Appear At The TOP Of The Page When You Log On To LPGA.com

Before the broadcast came on I wanted to check the status of a few of my favorite players so I logged on to lpga.com. The first thing that appeared was a picture and a headline, then some add, then some options for video. Not knowing I had to continue to scroll down, I hit the menu button then chose “leaderboard”. During a tournament competition I want to know scores so please make that the first thing I see when I log on to the website during competition days.

 

Stop Letting Caddies Line Up Players

You, as an organization, can do this without waiting for the governing bodies to rewrite or write a overarching, sweeping rule of golf. Work with them to institute a local rule each week, or take it upon yourself to start handing out hundred dollar fines, or figure out something else, but make it a priority. It looks terrible on TV and to some sends a message that the players aren’t capable of lining themselves up over a golf shot. Can there be worse optics for a professional athlete? Producers and viewers love to see and hear caddies and players discuss conditions, club selection and strategy but once that discussion is over the only person we should see on the screen is the athlete. Gerina Piller didn’t seem to lining up, I contend none of them do.

 

Start A Discussion With Your Television Partners About Employing Auto Racing Style “Side-By-Side” Coverage

When NASCAR or INDY Car racing does this it’s brilliant. I get to keep watching a sport that has continuous action live. Racing certainly lends itself to this technique but golf is even more appropriate. There are no caution flags in stroke play golf. The ONLY times there is NO action happening in a golf telecast is when there is a weather delay or only one group or pairing left on the course. It’s been tried on a couple of occasions in golf but for some reason it never stuck. Make it stick. Stop inviting me to watch something else especially on the closing holes during a final round.

 

Start Hoping Someone OTHER Than Lydia Ko Starts Winning Tournaments In Bunches

For my money Lexi Thompson is fun to watch, Michelle Wie is impossible not to watch, Lydia Ko is unwatchable. Ko is undoubtedly an amazing talent and an historic winner but she is painfully slow and uninteresting. Sherwin Williams and Benjamin Moore make great paint but nobody wants to see it applied and fewer still want to stick around to watch it dry. I produced events when the great Annika Sorenstam was winning all the time. Nobody ever accused her of being as telegenic as Arnold Palmer or Tiger Woods but Lydia Ko makes even Annika look like Christina Kim. I’m not suggesting you do or say anything to her (although there was absolutely NO reason for the Golf Channel to show almost every shot she hit on Sunday) just say a little prayer to the golf gods that Wiesy, or Paula, or Lexi or Gerina Piller for that matter start collecting trophies at a more consistent clip.

 

For me any one of these things would make the time I spend in front of my TV watching LPGA golf more enjoyable. All of them would be a bonanza.

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It’s High Time We Cut Jean van de Velde Some Slack

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

This past Sunday Jordan Spieth stood on the 12th tee at Augusta National on a collision course with history. He was seven holes away from becoming the youngest player ever to win two Masters’ green jackets. He was a great shape to become only the fourth player EVER to win this august major championship in back to back years joining Jack Nicklaus, Nick Faldo and Tiger Woods. Wow.

 

He stood on the 13th tee on a collision course with history of a different kind. He now faced the very real prospect of being the person who authored the single greatest collapse in major championship golf. Seven strokes, two Pro V1’s in the drink and a second straight Masters victory down the drain. Sure he could have eagled 13 and birdied 15 and 16 to win but he didn’t. Actually we all knew he couldn’t. He had been fighting his swing all week (he even flew in his coach for an emergency practice tee session) and on the 12th tee fought that battle and lost it again. Then he lost his mind. He played his third from the wrong spot, played it too quickly and laid the sod over his historic opportunity.

 

It brought back memories of Greg Norman who took a six shot lead into the final round of the 1996 Masters and lost to Nick Faldo. But the Norman collapse was a more gradual decent into defeat. Spieth’s was more sudden and worse. Norman bogeyed the first, fourth and ninth holes (he did birdie #2) while Faldo (playing alongside) birdied 2, 6 and 8 (he also made bogey at 7) so Greg’s lead at the turn was down to just two. In 2016 Spieth birdied 6,7,8 and 9 and marched to the tenth tee with a FIVE shot margin. Back in 1996 Norman then bogeyed 10 and 11 while Faldo made pars and the lead had evaporated altogether and both he and Faldo stood on the 12th tee 9 under par. It’s true Norman then dunked one (ONE) into Rae’s creek, made double bogey to Faldo’s par and Norman was two behind. He never got any closer. It was death by a thousand cuts, a steady stream of losing shots. Spieth on the other hand suffered a self-inflicted guillotine to the neck, a release of the lead with firehose force. And he did it without having to look in the eyes of the man who would overtake him.

 

All of this brings me right around to the most maligned major championship runner up in golf history, Jean van de Velde. Every golf fan older than 25 remembers the 1999 British Open, not because Paul Lawrie won it in a playoff but because Jean van de Velde lost a three shot lead on the 72nd hole. People (many of them smart, many more I respect) still consider the Frenchman’s folly as the biggest and most pronounced collapse in tournament golf. I disagreed then and I disagree now. It just so happens, for me, there is also now a worthy replacement. If you don’t know, or don’t remember, of which I speak you can find it on YouTube. I recommend it. van de Velde and the rest were playing Carnoustie and he had come to the 72nd hole with a two stroke lead. Then up ahead Justin Leonard bogeyed the par 4 and van de Velde’s lead was three. He pulled driver out of his bag, people gasped, television announcers questioned the play but as the BBC’s Peter Allis mentioned on the air van de Velde HAD made a four and two threes on the hole that week all while using a driver off the tee.

 

I spoke with a sports psychologist about this and without mentioning names or situations I asked if I had a game plan in regard to playing a hole and that game plan had been successful three straight days, should I change it on a fourth and final go round. His answer was absolutely not. He added that changing at that point would be allowing doubt to creep in, an admission that you were vulnerable.

 

Water, in the form of a burn (Scottish for brook), runs down the right side of the 18th at Carnoustie and then wraps around to form, for lack of a better term, a moat in front of the green. Jean van de Velde stuck with his game plan and hit his driver. Hit didn’t hit it all that well, finding the rough to the right of the water, ending up near the 17th tee. But he was dry. It left him a second shot of just more than 200 yards. He now had two choices; lay up with a short iron hitting it into the fairway and leaving another short iron to the green. But even that play would mean a departure from strategy and a third shot that now would come under increasing pressure would still have to clear the Barry Burn. So instead he made the prudent (in my opinion then and now) play, long iron, more than enough club to carry the hazard, aiming right of the flag to avoid any chance of hitting it out of bounds left. Then he did exactly what he set out to do. Maybe he caught a bit of the “flier”, maybe adrenaline gave his smack a little extra kick, maybe he hit it where he aimed it. Don’t know. What I do know is that after hitting a not perfect but perfectly acceptable shot Jean van de Velde was the recipient of the worst break in major championship golf.

 

His golf ball hit a railing attached to the grandstands erected to the player’s right of 18 green. It hit the grandstand railing at the precise spot and angle that would send it ricocheting back and to the left, eventually settling in the high grass on the other side of the burn. This is why I firmly believe Jordan Spieth’s “misfortune” at Augusta is far more egregious and memorable than the one van de Velde suffered 16 and half years earlier. Jean suffered an incredibly bad break. Jordan hit two incredibly bad shots. The Frenchman’s fate was determined by an inch. If that ball had flown an inch higher, or an inch farther to the right or left it would have ended up in the grandstands, on some fortunate fan’s lap. Free drop, greenside, four shots from there to claim the claret jug. There was no break, good, bad or indifferent, associated with either of the young American’s shots on Sunday (except for maybe Jordan’s heart). The only poor shot Jean van de Velde hit that day was his third (it went into the burn) but if not for that fateful inch, that unfortunate railing, it wouldn’t have ever been struck.

 

People said that day it was the biggest choke in major championship golf history. I didn’t. People still say it today. I don’t. The Wall Street Journal even went a step further by putting it at the top of its list of all sports in Tuesday’s column titled, “The Anatomy of the Epic Sports Choke”. People will think it 20 years from now. I never will. By the way his triple bogey seven didn’t even lose him the British Open. It merely put him in a playoff with Justin Leonard and Paul Lawrie (which he subsequently lost to Lawrie).

 

Adam Scott bogeyed the final four holes of the 2012 British Open and lost to Ernie Els. Ed Sneed bogeyed the last three holes at Augusta and lost The Masters in 1979. With the 54-hole lead at Pebble Beach, Dustin Johnson shot an abysmal 11 over par final round and lost the 2010 United States Open. Arnold Palmer led by SEVEN shots with 9 holes to play at the 1966 U.S. Open and LOST to Billy Casper. I’ve already mentioned Norman and now Spieth. ALL worse than Jean van de Velde. So can we finally give the guy a break?

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My Heartfelt Thanks To Arnold Palmer

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

“Mama, put my guns in the ground

I can’t shoot them anymore.

That long black cloud is comin’ down

I feel I’m knockin’ on heaven’s door.”

 

Bob Dylan

 

 

Like millions of golf fans, I watched the ceremonial first tee shots at The Masters this year. It made me sad. As expected CBS showed those images again just after coming on the air Saturday and Sunday. It made me sad again.

 

I am a Beatles not a Stones guy. I prefer Coke to Pepsi. For me it always was, and always will be, Arnold Palmer over Jack Nicklaus.

 

Arnold Palmer first went to Augusta in 1955 as the reigning United States Amateur Champion. It was a happy time for him, a happy time for golf. It hurt my heart watching him watch Jack and Gary Player hit tee shots to start this Masters on Thursday morning. It isn’t hard to imagine Arnold Palmer may not make it back to those hallowed golf grounds. But in between then and now the great Arnold Palmer won that tournament 4 times and owned it until Tiger came along in 1997. You could make an argument he still owned it after that.

 

He was my sports hero.

 

My parents, who were avid golfers, used to joke that Arnold Palmer was the only man my mother would have left my father for. The punchline was my dad would have been okay with it. Millions of women felt like her, millions of men, like him.

 

I saw Mr. Palmer in person for the first time when he came to my hometown of Reno, NV for an exhibition. He was cool on TV but that couldn’t come close to what he was like in person. Like many in my generation I wanted to be him but knew that was impossible. So we all did the next best thing: we fell in love with the game he lived for. I have already written (both in this space and in my book) about the greatness, on and off the golf course, of Arnold Palmer. He will never be the guy who won the most tournaments, the most majors or the most money. He will ALWAYS be the player who won and kept the most hearts.

 

Years after following him, I covered him thanks to my job in television. Then I worked with him, for him, and alongside him, for many years at The Golf Channel. He was always kind and gracious. Always. I was always respectful and reverent and in awe. It was an honor to be in his inner circle, even just for a short period of time. I was never worthy and he was never phony, not about anything. In the coming days, weeks, months, and everyone hopes still years to come, we will hear a lot about “The King”. What we aren’t likely to hear is that he never warmed to that nickname. He said so on several occasions and wrote about it on page 397 of his book, A Golfer’s Life.

 

“I’ll let you in on a little secret, something I’ve admitted to a handful of folks. I never cared for the nickname “The King.” At times it makes me uncomfortable and even a bit irritated. There is no king of golf. Never has been, never will be.”

 

Arnold Palmer knew how important golf fans in general, and his fans in particular, were to the sport. He wasn’t “better” than them, he was one of them. For Mr. Palmer it was never, ever about him. It was always, every second, about the game of golf.

 

The day Arnold Palmer takes his last breath, and for many days after, we will all be inundated with “personal stories” about the great man from every person who had even the remotest of connections with the game of golf. Some will be true, many will be exaggerated, but all will be heartfelt. He engendered that in people. One thing that will be absolute is that he made an impression on everyone he met. He also made an incredibly positive impression on the people who never had the pleasure of spending one single second with him. They watched him, they roared for him, they loved him and the best part was he honestly, unabashedly loved them back.

 

Oscar Wilde once said “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” Arnold Palmer LIVED and when he dies it will be a sad day around the globe, a melancholy day in American sports and a heartbreaking day in the world of golf.

 

I am one of the lucky ones. I was not only fortunate enough to grow up in the era when Arnold Palmer competed but through serendipity I actually knew him and was honored by the fact that he knew me. I am 60 years old and at that age where my sports heroes will start to leave this earth. It will be Arnie, it will be Ali, it will be Willie, it will be more. It sucks but it’s life

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Six Golf Commercials Scored

Posted on April 9, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

Rory “Snake” – Bogey


It looks cool, is well edited and dramatic but honestly what the heck is going on here? Is this a modern day version of “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”? Or is it “I got a great idea, let’s put a rattlesnake in the commercial so people will say “hey there’s a rattlesnake in the new Nike commercial!” What does it have to do with Rory or Nike or golf? And is it selling one single ball, article of clothing or piece of equipment? I think not.


Rolex “This Watch” -Birdie


Melodramatic? Kind of. Artistic? Certainly. Evocative? Definitely. Who doesn’t like seeing classic images of Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods in each’s prime? Oh and by the way I want that blue faced watch!

Zurich “Lie Detector” – Par


Clever, mildly amusing and great acting by Ben Crane. If it actually helped sell insurance it might get bumped up to a birdie.

AT & T Jordan Spieth “Caddie” – Par


I’m sure the people who really like Jordan Spieth think this is a better commercial than I do. Don’t get me wrong I think Jordan is a really good player and I think this spot is a pretty good one. My problem is that the whole “we” concept in professional golf is an immediate turn off for me. Also the payoff is okay with the mispronunciation of Jordan’s last name at the end but it would have been so much better if Retief Goosen, Jose Maria Olazabal, Joost Luiten or Tyrone Van Aswegen had delivered it. I mean, why not? Tony Romo is in it!

IZOD Webb Simpson “our team” – Triple Bogey


Does anybody, who knows anything at all about golf or Webb Simpson, think this is a good commercial? I can’t think of a more dramatic misread on the “green” that is somebody’s brand. The 2012 United States Open Champion is a good player. I’m sure he is also a tremendous family man and a more than decent guy. What he is not is a frat boy on a boat. The guys on his “team” don’t look remotely fun, aspirational or enjoyable to be around. They look like obnoxious jerks and Webb is tainted with that same brush. This ad is a creation of an agency that thinks it’s “edgy” but knows nothing about the audience it’s trying to reach, the sport it’s hoping to showcase, or the spokesperson of the product they are trying to represent. How they got Webb to agree to this is beyond me.

 
Callaway “Boeing” – Bogey

Really? There hasn’t been this big of a disconnect between a company and golf since… Okay there has never been this big of a disconnect between a company and golf.

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The Masters Needs THIS Guy To Start Winning Green Jackets

Posted on April 6, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

Let me correct myself right out of the gate. The Masters doesn’t NEED anything or anyone. But I firmly believe the annual Augusta golf get together would benefit most going forward if one player started winning the most coveted coat in golf. That player is Rickie Fowler.

 

The Masters Tournament was first played in 1934 and Horton Smith was the winner. He won it again two years later and then gave way to, among others, Byron Nelson, Jimmy Demaret, Sam Snead (who was the first to receive a green jacket in addition to the trophy and the money) and Ben Hogan. Between 1934 and 1958 those four players won 10 of the 18 tournaments and (sacrilege alert!) few people outside the insular world of golf cared. Then in 1956 two things started to emerge; television and Arnold Palmer. Palmer won the United States Amateur Championship in 1954 which put him in the 1955 event and then CBS decided to televise the final four holes in 1956 which put the Masters on the map. Arnold Palmer didn’t win that year, Jack Burke, Jr. did, but he made the cut and finished 21st. He improved 14 places the next year then won the first of his three green jackets in 1958. The “Army” was in full force by then and golf had its first bona fide superstar.

 

He won again in 1960 and in 1962 and was competitive in the event for the better part of thirty years (26 made cuts, 13 Top 15 finishes) and everyone watched every one. He and Jack Nicklaus passed the baton and put the jacket on each other between 1962 and ’65 then the Golden Bear ran away and dethroned Palmer as the king of Augusta. Nicklaus won the tournament 6 times between the expected victory in 1963 and the unexpected one 23 years later. During that time Gary Player won as did Billy Casper, Raymond Floyd, Seve Ballesteros, Tom Watson and Ben Crenshaw. Nicklaus might have been the man we appreciated best but Palmer remained the one we loved the most.

 

By 1988 Nicklaus had been memorialized, Palmer was a fond memory and the Europeans started owning The Masters. Sandy Lyle started the trend and he was followed by Nick Faldo (3 times), Ian Woosnam, Bernhard Langer and Jose Maria Olazabal. In nine years only two Americans interrupted the reverse colonization, Fred Couples (somehow) in 1992 and Ben Crenshaw (somehow) in ’95. U.S. golf fans hungered for a homegrown hero and in 1997 we got him. Tiger Woods brought his record setting six straight USGA titles and his three PGA TOUR titles to Magnolia Lane and raised the bar to heights never before seen. He blew away the tournament scoring record and won the event by 12 shots and we ate it up. He dominated the play on the course for the next eight years winning three more times and has dominated the discussion outside the ropes every year whether he wins, contends or doesn’t even compete. Sure Phil Mickelson won three green jackets of his own in that time but he was never Tiger, never will be. Non Tiger winners in the Tiger era also included Mike Weir, Zach Johnson, Angel Cabrera and Trevor Immelman. And that brings me to today.

 

Since Tiger’s last Masters win (2005) Mickelson has done his darndest to capture our attention and he’s done a pretty decent job, but for all intents and purposes his green jacket days are done. Could he win again? Certainly. Will he? I wouldn’t bet on it. Since his last victory (2010) the winners have been Charl Schwartzel, Bubba Watson (twice), Adam Scott and Jordan Spieth. All great players, most nice guys but none are Arnie, Jack or Tiger. They’re more like Player, Faldo and Crenshaw. We’re fine when they win and they have their own loyal followings but they don’t excite the masses, they don’t light a fire under the unenlightened and the game has yet to show any interest in carrying its torch for any of them.

 

Several players will be competing for the green jacket during the next decade and more. They include the people mentioned in the previous paragraph. To that list I’d add Rory McIlroy, Jason Day, Henrik Stenson, Justin Rose and the guy I argue The Masters needs more than any of them, Rickie Fowler. Make no mistake Rory, Jason, Henrik and the rest will be awkwardly putting on sport coats in the Butler cabin for years to come, some of them more than once. They will all be admired but, in my mind, only Fowler has the chance to be adored. Have you been to a professional golf tournament lately? Have you watched one on TV? Have you played a round of golf anywhere in the country over the past 5 years? None of the fans under 20 are wearing grey slacks or collarless Nike golf shirts. They are almost all wearing bright orange! Flat billed hats outnumber flat front Under Armour pants. Pouncing Pumas have the jump on swooshes.

 

They all have great golf games. They all can drive it long, straight or long AND straight. They all can hit it close and putt the eyes out. But Rickie Fowler has something on all of them. He has flair, he has charisma, he has a swagger. He has what Augusta needs and what I, for one, want. Somebody to rally behind, really cheer for. It’s a great time for Rickie to become this generation’s Arnie.

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And The Emmy Awards Goes To…

Posted on April 4, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

Truth serum time… I LOVE awards and award shows. I watch the Oscars, Golden Globes, Grammys, ACM’s and EMMYs. I am interested in both who and what gets nominated and who and what wins.

 

I have a particular affinity for the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Sports Emmy Awards. Partly because I am the proud owner of one but mostly because those nominated every year are my friends, colleagues, mentors, protégés, rivals and heroes. Every year the academy nominates hundreds of hard working sports television professionals from dozens of networks and outlets for outstanding work done throughout a variety of sports seasons. The EMMY my co-workers and I won is the same statue, the same size, weight and made from the same materials as ones that have been awarded to Oprah, Bill Murray and Jon Hamm. I have as many EMMYs as Kevin Costner and one more than Angela Lansbury (who was nominated 18 times without ever taking home a statue). But enough about me, let’s talk about the 2016 Sports Emmy nominations.

 

The academy honored 39 networks, channels and other outlets with nominations. Not surprisingly, ESPN led the way with 40 nominations. Marginally surprising was that FS1 was second with 27. Fourteen organizations received a single nomination including PGA.com, the NHL Network, ESPNU, A&E and the Golf Channel. The program with the most nods was ESPN’s E:60 (it got 8), Super Bowl 50 received 7, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, 4 and College GameDay, Inside the NBA on TNT, NASCAR on NBC and the USGA on Fox: U.S. Open all were recognized with 3. You read that right FOX’s coverage of the USGA’s flagship event was recognized by their peers to the tune of 3 EMMY award nominations. That’s the most of any golf telecast in 2016.

 

The outstanding work by the CBS golf team at The Masters was recognized and did garner 2 nominations. One for Outstanding Live Sports Special (it is up against the 147th Belmont Stakes, NBA All Star Saturday Night, Super Bowl 50 and the 111th World Series). The other Masters nod came for Outstanding Open/Tease. ESPN’s broadcast of the British Open was also EMMY worthy but not for the coverage. It received a tip of the cap in The Dick Schaap Outstanding Writing Award category, for the tremendous work, no doubt, of Tom Rinaldi. My pals at the PGA of America were also recognized one time, in what’s called the Outstanding Trans-Media Sports Coverage category for their work at the PGA Championship. The only other golf related nomination was collected by the Golf Channel in the Outstanding Editing-Short Form category for the creative team’s body of work for its Live Tournament Teases. But let’s get back to FOX.

 

The first of three EMMY nominations awarded to the network for its first time U.S. Open coverage came in the Outstanding Technical Team Remote category. It is up against a formidable group of broadcasts (the 2015 US Open tennis, Monday Night Football, Sunday Night Football and Super Bowl 50) and it would be a surprise to me if it won an EMMY in this category. FOX’s U.S. Open work was also nominated in the Outstanding Live Event Audio/Sound category. The competition there is also stiff with nods to MLB on FOX, NASCAR on FOX, NASCAR on NBC and NFL on FOX. My prediction here is that FOX gets the EMMY but not for golf. The third category is where I think the network WILL come away a winner, The George Wensel Technical Achievement Award. This EMMY is given every year to the network that made the biggest impact in its broadcast thanks to the introduction of innovative technology. This year FOX got the nomination for introducing the FOX Sports Rangefinder. It was an incredibly informative and visual tool that allowed the viewer to see the exact yardage a player faced on almost every shot. It looked great and it was a terrific addition to golf coverage. Also nominated in this category is the NCAA railcam used in the multi networks of CBS coverage of March Madness, the ESPN Pylon Cam, MLB Network’s Statcast Powered by Amazon Web Services and EyeVision 360 used by CBS at Super Bowl 50. For the most part all terrific technical advances but to me only the FOX Rangefinder and CBS’ EyeVision 360 stood out.

 

I have served as a judge for the Sports Emmys once and the Daytime EMMYs on several occasions (Ellen Degeneres can thank me, in part, for two of her EMMYs) and I can tell you that the judges take this responsibility of grading their peers very seriously. At the same time, it is almost impossible to rule out any ounce of subjectivity entirely. We were surprised at The Golf Channel when we were nominated in 2007 and absolutely floored when we actually won the award. It was the first and remains the only EMMY Award won by the all golf channel in its more than 20-year existence. Maybe they’ll win number two for the outstanding, creative work they did getting shows on the air in 2015. I hope so.

 

The hardworking men and women on the FOX Sports golf team should be extremely proud of the recognition it received for the coverage of the 2015 United States Open Championship at Chambers Bay. They may not win any statues but the fact that they were nominated in three separate categories is almost unheard of for a golf telecast. It’s even more exceptional when you consider it was the group’s FIRST crack at one of golf’s crown jewels and only the fourth tournament ever broadcast by this team of outstanding technicians and production people. I’ll be more than curious to learn who all the winners are this year. May I have the envelope please…

 

You can check out all the categories and nominees at emmyonline.com

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Living Proof That A Person Can Be Great At Many Things Yet Not All That Good At Something Else

Posted on March 31, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

I must begin this post by saying unequivocally that I believe Annika Sorenstam is golf’s greatest woman player ever. She is also in my top 5 of the game’s best players, man or woman, of all time. I mean it, I stand by it and if I was brave enough to climb up on my roof I would shout it from there. No disrespect to Kathy or Mickey or Patty or Babe or Nancy or Karrie or Lorena, it’s just a fact. She was just named Captain of the 2017 European Solheim Cup team and no doubt she’ll be great at that too.

She is no doubt also a great Mom, a wonderful wife, a true friend and an amazing human being but what she is not very good at is live tournament broadcast television. I’m watching her right now on the Golf Channel’s coverage of the ANA Inspiration. I watched her last year too. She’s no better today than she was then and then she was, as they say in the business, ” a hard listen”. 

Let me say it again I am a HUGE Annika Sorenstam fan. I loved following her, watching her and covering her when she played. I just don’t like listening to her on tv. 

When we were fortunate enough to get a few minutes of her time, when our team provided the tv coverage of the LPGA, I remember how uncomfortable she always was being interviewed. She was both painfully shy and admirably reluctant to say anything remotely negative about a fellow player, the tour or a golf course. I felt she was careful not to say anything that could be considered controversial in part because she knew she was the standard bearer for an entire sport but more, I believed, because she honestly didn’t have anything controversial to say.

She was humble, soft spoken and many times because of that she was hard to understand without rewinding and replaying the tape a few times. The Swedish accent, which is still quite pronounced didn’t, and doesn’t help either. That’s okay if you’re transcribing a comment for a newspaper or magazine article but it all adds up to an over par round if you’re talking about live TV.
Another thing I think impedes her ability to get better is the fact that her booth mate is notorious for saying what we can see, stating the obvious. Annika would probably do that anyway because it’s in her comfort zone but hearing a seasoned professional announcer do it only serves to reinforce her belief that it’s not only okay but the proper thing to do. The culture around those parts these days is very pro talent. It’s frowned upon to criticize on air people. Too bad because if Annika really has designs on doing this in the future she could use some constructive criticism.

Do I need to remind you that I think Annika Sorenstam is a great player and a wonderful person. After this I hope she is still my friend. I used to write all the show openings for the golf channel’s LPGA coverage and I remember, on a couple of occasions, telling our host Grant Boone that he would have to come up with how we came on the air because I couldn’t bring myself to find the words to pen another “Annika is great” tease. She just doesn’t shine in an extended stint in the announce booth.

She is oddly robotic sounding, tends to repeat herself (I could go back to a year ago and find things she said then about players that are word for word what she said today), and is still quite guarded, extremely careful, not to come across as even remotely negative. About anything or anyone.

So by all means bring her in for an extended interview, have her stay for a couple of segments then thank her very much and let her go enjoy a cold beverage, sign autographs and be one of the game’s outstanding global ambassadors. That’s what she does best now. Two hours is an hour and 45 minutes too much. I am well aware that this is akin to sacrilege to women’s golf fans generally and Annika fans specifically. Few people would like her to be better than me but she’s got a long way to go.

By the way did I mention I think she’s the greatest?

    

 

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It’s A Thin Line Between Love And Hate

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

There’s an old proverb that states, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”. Clearly this was said eons before the advent of the 64 team NCAA basketball tournament. 

Last night my wife, a Duke grad and fan, and I were watching Sweet Sixteen games at a local watering hole over a meal and a martini. I went to Nevada and picked Michigan State to win my pool so for all intents and purposes I never had a dog in the fight. Her Blue Devils lost the night before so I thought she was now teamless too.

“I’m not sure who I want to win,” I said between bites.

“In these games (Saturday night) or to win it all?” She replied after a sip.

I have friends who pledge allegiance to Notre Dame and Oregon, two of my children and one of my best friends attended the University of Wisconsin. I bear no grudge toward the Orange and harbor no ill will for Iowa State. I have nothing against the Hoosiers or Wahoos and I almost attended Gonzaga. So for whom should I, could I cheer? The only thing I knew for sure was, because of my marital allegiance to the Blue Devils, that I COULD NOT, WOULD NOT become a Tar Heel fan, not for two measly weeks, not for two seconds. As a Duke alum I was convinced my bride felt the same, until she didn’t.

“I guess I’d like to see Carolina win it all,” is what the person to whom I’m married, the one I thought I knew, said. 

I nearly choked on my bite of lump meat crab and asparagus mac and cheese. Was this some form of Stockholm Syndrome? Was the love of my life suffering from some sort of actual March Madness? I guessed she was going to say Oregon because they beat Duke and, you know the reasoning, if they go on to win it all it means Duke could have too. Any other team would have made more sense to me than the hated in state rival. But she said it and she meant it. After regaining my composure I asked the only question that made sense to me,

“Why?”

“If Carolina wins, it’s good for Duke,” was her brilliant, obvious, seven word answer but it didn’t sink it right away. Then she added “school first, conference second.”

I am a life long SF Giants fan and because of that, even though they are in the same division, I could never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ahh heck one more ever for good measure, root for the damn Dodgers to win anything and I told my wife so.

“I get it,” she replied trying to assuage my confusion, ” but that’s apples and oranges.” I said nothing about the fruit salad so she continued, “if the Dodgers win it doesn’t help the Giants financially. It doesn’t get better players to come play for San Francisco.” If Carolina wins a national championship it’s also good for Duke.”

I understood her reasoning but that didn’t mean I had to like it. Roy Williams is not my idea of a great coach, or even a good one for that matter. His team’s win in spite of him not because of him. I told my wife that.

“All true,” she said, “so it’s Virginia.” Maybe if Zach Auguste didn’t act like such a punk she would have said Notre Dame, I thought.

Like I said, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.

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The PGA TOUR Has Ruined Another Event… Go Figure

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Keith Hirshland

The PGA TOUR tried to make the WGC Dell Match Play more television friendly and all they did was make the early matches less watchable.

Few thing are more simple in general or more compelling in sports than “win or go home” and “one and done”. Just imagine if Michigan State’s 2016 NCAA March Madness loss wasn’t really a loss but simply a “mark against them in their pool”. What if they didn’t have to go home but had more chances to beat other teams who had won or lost? It would suck, it would be meaningless and it would not be worth watching. In other words it would be the WGC Dell Match Play.

So what if Jordan Spieth or Rory McIlroy or Jason Day or “heaven forbid” Phil Mickelson lost and had to go home before Saturday? That is what used to make the first few days of this tournament worth watching!

So what if the television powers that be don’t get their dream match ups on the weekend? Call the Whaaambulance! For one week of an incredibly tedious and seemingly never ending professional golf season I don’t think it’s too much to ask for some actual DRAMA on a Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.

Now all we have is a slew of meaningless golf instead of a match or two that might actually matter. The problem is, quite frankly, the PGA TOUR. They don’t own any part and can’t control any of element of golf’s four most important events (the U. S. Open, The Masters, The British Open or The PGA Championship) so they go about the business of ruining every event they DO own, run or manage by trying to inject faux drama.

It hasn’t ever worked in the past and it didn’t work this week in Austin, TX. Pass the remote.

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