Apropos to yesterday’s post about the challenges of finding your team on TV these days, here’s what The Athletic had to say about baseball’s debut on Netflix by Ken “The Bow Tie” Rosenthal:
That broadcast was … something
Preface: Producing a baseball broadcast is difficult.
I mean, it must be, because every time we get a new network joining the increasingly confusing landscape, it seems like the first question in my brain is: “Did they bother consulting with anyone who has done this before?”
After being screamed at by Bert Kreischer — “THIS IS BASEBALLLLLLL,” as if “Baseball” were an oiled-up 6-8 wrestler with a bat — we got an actual wrestler to yell “PLAY BALLLLLL,” and if you read my prose on Opening Day just before turning on that broadcast, I feel like I owe you an apology for false advertising.
Then came the game, and the internet collectively surmised, “There is no reason those names should be that small in the year of our Lord 20 and 26.”
You just zoomed in on this photo, didn’t you? Well, we couldn’t pinch our TVs last night.
Furthermore, I know the sun comes in at a weird angle at 5:30 p.m. PT at Oracle Park, but Netflix’s corporate offices are less than 55 miles from there (I looked it up!), so it had ample time to ensure its green-screen ads didn’t look like a 2016 Snapchat filter.
I don’t even wanna talk about the postgame hot dogs.
Look, it wasn’t all shambolic. Matt Vasgersian remains a pro’s pro on play-by-play, and it was cool to see Barry Bonds as a member of the pre- and postgame crew. He even joined the booth and told a wild story about turning down the Yankees as a free agent. Fun!
But as for the rest: Andrew Marchand put it best: “What Netflix missed was that it was just picking up the story of MLB. A new season starts another chapter, but it is an old book.”
As I have said before, I don’t really like watching games that are carried by networks. They have a tendency to be overly sentimental, using celebrities to wax nostalgic about what baseball means (really, used to mean) to this country or, as in the case of Mr. Kreischer, try to gin up the crowd. IMO, this is for people who don’t usually watch baseball, especially during the post-season. Those of us who are fans don’t need this massaging or messaging.