Press Coverage: Curb, Muggings, UFL and the TBS Lead Booth Not In Postseason Form

If you took a break from your sports viewing this weekend and watched Sunday's episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm, you caught the storyline where Larry stopped Jeff and Susie's daughter from singing – terribly – at a well-attended party. Of course, in typical Curb fashion, Larry is seen as an insensitive sociopath, but in reality, he was the only one who had the courtesy to stop the young girl from further embarrassment.

Someone at TBS needs to invite Larry to their next mixer, especially if Chip Caray is invited. Richard Sandomir took Caray apart after his call of the AL Central tiebreaker. Inexplicably, Caray has been worse since then.

Sunday night, in the late innings of the Yankees clincher over the Twins, Caray stated that the Twins were having to string together at-bats to score, noting in that half inning they had "a double and a hit." He also read a promo telling fans that the Phillies were facing the Rockies in Game Three of the NLDS "at 9:30 ET." The game was a 10:07 start time, which wouldn't have been that big a gaffe – Game Three was originally slated for 9:37 on Saturday before getting snowed out – if Caray hadn't read the promo at 9:49 p.m.

That last mistake could be the fault of the producer, spotter or whoever in the booth handed Caray the wrong card to read. But overall one has to wonder how you can walk in to the press box and call a game for millions of viewers when everyone thinks you're terrible. Fine, not everyone cares about the game call like diehard fans and media wonks. Most people don't even think about the announcers. But enough of us do that it makes you wonder if Caray reads his press clips. Is it too late to get better? Does Caray's last name give him the right to be terrible?

Say what you will about Joe Buck's delivery, which parenthetically I usually enjoy for baseball, but Buck never makes mistakes like Caray has this postseason. When recapping Nick Punto's eighth inning baserunning gaffe that, in theory, cost the Twins any chance to win Game Three of the ALDS, Caray remarked that Punto rounded third and "slipped and fell" before getting picked off. Replays clearly indicated, as Ron Darling pointed out, that Punto went into a slide stop so he could halt his momentum and try to get back to third more quickly. It makes you wonder if Caray remembered the play incorrectly, or simply doesn't understand the fundamentals of the game. Like MLB does with its umpiring crews, TBS would benefit from analyzing and grading their announce crews for the NLCS. Caray and Darling have been the fourth-best crew.

Speaking of TBS, a dugout mic in the Phillies-Rockies game caught Shane Victorino say, "F--- yeah Jimmy," after Rollins scored the eventual game-winning run. Live TV mistake. So why did TBS replay the clip with sound as b-roll during David Aldridge's interview of Ryan Howard after the game? Sure it's 2:18 a.m. ET, but I'm certain the FCC won't be a fan of that replay, no matter what the hour.

Boston Post Mortem, National Style

I'm sure those around the country who are haters of Red Sox Nation will love the post mortem by the likes of Dan Shaughnessy or Bob Ryan. But I'll link to a more impartial dissection of the end of Game Three – Joe Posnanski despised the Torii Hunter intentional walk on exactly seven different levels.

Sportswriters Should Invest in TV Guide ... or a clue

I always wanted to have a column where I gave a monthly award to the most poorly written article by a 'mainstream' journalist. Now, that'd be a ridiculous thing to do, and I'm sure it would make me more enemies than anything else. Glass houses and all. But Mike Freeman's column on the UFL would win for October, hands down.

I looked and looked and looked for the UFL. Supposedly, it's on the Versus network. I've yet to find this mythical Versus. It'd be easier to find Madonna's virginity than locate Versus.

As a football addict, I want the UFL to succeed, but it won't break through a crowded fall sports universe if it makes the games difficult to find on television.

Did he really write a column where the point was that he was too lazy to look up a channel on his guide? Perhaps Freeman has DirecTV, which recently dropped Versus in a heated, and much publicized, spat. Or perhaps he thought it'd be funny to rip on a smaller network that not only shows UFL football but also major-conference college football and something called the NHL. No reason a national columnist would have ever needed to get Versus before. Leave aside the references to downloading 'gay porn viruses,' its amazing the editors at CBS let one of their writers out himself, albeit in a more embarrassing way.

This leads us to Saturday, when Peter King posted this on Twitter:

Never heard of HDNet till tonight. Sue me. I cover football, not television.

King covers football, yet talks about his life and pop culture and anything he wants, including TV, in his Monday Morning Quarterback. Look, it's not like I've watched HDNet on purpose before. I may have stumbled upon it. But I know it exists.

How can you work in this business and get away with the kind of stuff King and Freeman did this weekend? Mark Cuban rightfully went back at King for what he deemed at 'condescending comment' about Cuban's business. But the question lingers, if everyone has heard of something and you haven't, or everyone can easily search for a channel but you don't know how to work the guide button, why tell people? It just makes you look like an idiot.

Grant Wahl: Intrepid Sportswriter

Grant Wahl has been following the USMNT (that's soccer for you uninitiated) on their World Cup qualifying run. With Friday's match in Honduras, the SI scribe decided to travel around the country and ask anyone who'd talk what the Honduran soccer team's recent success has meant to them, and the region. One of the people he interviewed was Roberto Micheletti, interim president of the country. On a day you interview a head of state, it's odd that the linkable content of your story would come from another event. Odd unless that linkable content is a story about being mugged at gunpoint:

On Friday afternoon, I ventured to the embassy district of Tegucigalpa, where hundreds of gun-toting police have surrounded the Brazilian embassy (and its occupant Zelaya). The police chief gave me the clearance to interview some soccer-loving police officers, whose scowls melted into smiles as they talked of getting a few hours off from work to watch USA-Honduras.

After we finished, I started walking back to my car, which I had parked a few blocks away in what appeared to be a safe part of town a stone's throw from the U.S. embassy. And then, in broad daylight, with hundreds of police officers only a couple hundred yards away, a 20-something male ran up behind me, pulled out a gun, and threatened to kill me if I didn't give him my things.

Wahl did give up his wallet and iPhone, and probably a little bit of his pride. But he's a nice guy, so it's good to hear he's safe. Well, fine, even if he wasn't a nice guy, I guess you wouldn't want him shot.

To open and close this column with Curb references, I do wonder how I'd react if I were in that situation. In a foreign country, unfamiliar with the crime rates and culture of that particular region, I'm sure I'd do what Wahl did. But here in the States, I might have to try the heart-attack defense (note: link has language that's funny, but NSFW). Who's robbing a guy having a heart attack? The more you know, Grant ... but I'm glad you're safe.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.