Phil Mushnick of the New York Post really pulls no punches when it comes to ESPN, of whom he says, “(T)here is no bad-to-awful idea that is so bad or so awful that the Worldwide Leader In Sports won’t embrace it — then hammer it to death. ”
His latest source of vitriol is the K-Zone feature, which ESPN uses during baseball telecasts to show whether or not a pitch was in the strike zone. This apparently is going too far.
“The K box serves the dual purpose of being annoying and misleading. It asks us to consider balls and strikes as seen in one, faulty dimension. This isn’t stickball, you geniuses! Yet, ESPN’s has painted a strike box to a virtual handball wall to help us grasp big league baseball!
AdvertisementStop wrecking these telecasts! Please! If fans wanted to watch pitches thrown toward a box in front of the catcher, teams would dangle one from a hook behind home plate. Let us watch the games. That’s all we’ve ever asked.”
I don’t know, count me among the viewers who actually likes to know if an umpire is making the right calls. Oftentimes my initial impression of a pitch is incorrect. I haven’t watched every ESPN baseball telecast this season, but I don’t remember them using the K-zone on every pitch – only the borderline pitches. This bears further study.