Say Goodnight, Gracie

As one of the remaining 47 Americans without cable TV, I am doomed to catch my homeside televised baseball on Fox, Saturday afternoons -- at least until the pre-season football season begins during pennant race time.

Assuming you have been subject to this network's many inanities, I won't regale you with my cavalcade of complaints. You already know that Fox televises only games involving the Yankees, Mets and home team, which in my region is the Braves. You already know about the often ignorant and infuriating chatter of the anchors and of Joe Buck's love interest in Derek Jeter.

This past weekend's broadcast brought us two special absurdities -- one old and one new. First, the inconsequential.

I don't know how many years Fox has been running its "Sounds of the Game" feature, whereby it records and then replays the highlights of onfield banter, but it's at least half a decade. In all that time, have you ever noticed that it has an unblemished record of vacuousness? Really, think back. Have you once heard anyone say anything even mildly revealing? After five years of mindlessness, can't the network suits kill this waste of airwaves, or are they the same people who cooked up the "war on drugs"? Do we really need to hear a player say of the opposing pitcher who has walked six batters, "he doesn't have his usual command today"?

Now, the consequential: the new studio host, Mark dis-Grace. Commenting on Miguel Tejada revealing himself to be two years older than originally acknowledged -- I'm shocked, shocked! -- Grace disparaged the reporter who asked the question, for playing gotcha journalism and trying to make a name for himself by being an investigative reporter.

Now I don't mind former jocks commenting on national television about their sport. I don't mind them having opinions that are contrary to mine. I do, however, believe that they have a responsibility to have a clue what they're talking about. In that regard, say goodnight, Gracie. It is hard to imagine an opinion so utterly ignorant as that one.

For the record, your Grace, it is a reporter's job to ask tough questions. Any reporter who fails to ask tough questions is a publicist, not a reporter. The players may like him more, but his readers/listeners/viewers/editor won't. If asking tough questions puts a player on the spot because he has been lying for 15 years, that's the player's problem, not the reporter's. Any reporter who balks at asking the tough question ought to be fired.

Moreover, every reporter is an investigative reporter. Reporters investigate; that's their job. Contrary to your warped perspective, calling him an investigative reporter is a compliment, not an insult. It would be like me calling you a masher, which of course, you weren't.

Had Mark Grace opined that Miguel Tejada was going to the Hall of Fame, or is going to spank 30 home runs this year, or lead the Astros to the pennant, I might have thought him an idiot, but would acknowledge his right to his opinion, especially if he could articulate a coherent supporting argument. But upbraiding a professional for doing his job requires knowledge of the profession in question that Mark Grace just doesn't have. In that case, the Sound of the Game should be...silence.