Three Man Booth

I noted earlier how much I liked Al Leiter's work in the booth with Thom Brennaman and Steve Lyons in the Fox coverage of the National League Championship Series.

As much as I like Leiter's work?

That's how much I dislike Bret Boone's contribution in the ALCS coverage.

That's not exactly true. I can't tell how much he's adding, because he's constantly being goaded into these weird discussions/arguments with Tim McCarver.

I think my friend Joe hit the nail on the head with Leiter. He's different from a lot of the athletes who've gotten into the booth: Leiter's not trying to prove anything.

McCarver is constantly trying to prove how smart he is and how much he knows about the intracacies of the game. And he spends so much time explaining things that really don't need explaining, that it actually distracts me from the game.

And Boone is using McCarver as his example.

An example from tonight's game. Fox was finding celebrities in the New York crowd: Chris Rock, John McEnroe, Rudy Guiliani, Mayor Bloomberg. And without the cameras finding him, Buck the Lesser says "There's 'The Donald' to our left."

And McCarver has to say first: "There's only one 'The Donald.'"

Which annoyed me, because it he's filling air with useless chatter. It's like somebody told him that dead air is the worst possible thing in the world. That's true on radio, but on television, we have all these wonderful images transmitted to us to occupy our minds.

But then he adds: "And that's Donald Trump!"

Well. If there's only one, couldn't you all trust us to know who that one is?

I've not seen it posted. Is it Buck and McCarver and a third party for the Series?

Oh well.

But then, I can't be trusted to know which shoes to wear to a job interview. So what do I know?