Even though we are past the point where Larry David says it is okay to say Happy New Year, we return to something that has ground my gears for a while during this lull in the offseason: my gripes with
the FOX baseball broadcast.
In what has unexpectedly and delightfully become an annual tradition (next year in Seattle!), I rang in the New Year by rewatching Game 7 of the 2025 World Series on MLB.com. I had watched numerous calls and highlights, and even rewatched the game while listening to the radio call of Stephen Nelson and Rick Monday.
One-Act Play
One thing I had not done since attending Game 7 was watch the entire game in full while watching the FOX broadcast. Ringing in the new year with Joe Davis’ “to beat the champ, you gotta knock him out!” seemed like a nice way to start the new year at home. The funny thing about the call was that I said something similar to my seatmates a few minutes before.
However, after spending almost five hours with needless breaks for commercials that never came, it was an infuriating experience timed to the second, especially considering MLB released a three-hour truncated, ad-free version of Game 7 on YouTube that I somehow missed.
What truly ground my gears was how Fox did the broadcast through its gimmicks, in-game interviews, and commentary that was better off muted.
Being at Game 7 was one of the highlights of my life, a riveting ballet of high tension and drama where hours flew by in what felt like minutes as the Dodgers repeated as champions in one of, if not the best, game ever played. Watching Game 7 was anything but, as that tension was entirely gone when watching the game on Fox.
I made the point of live-blogging what I was thinking and feeling at Rogers Centre during Game 7 as a lark in real time. The New Year’s Eve live blog slowly unraveled into an unwatched one-man play about becoming livid with the broadcast, while sharing what I was thinking and feeling at Rogers Centre, which I’m sharing for posterity.
I tried to figure out why the telecast was such a dud. At first, I thought maybe it was because I knew the outcome in advance, but I quickly dismissed that notion because good baseball is good baseball. Besides, Game 5 of the 2024 World Series was only enjoyable on a rewatch because the outcome was known.
“Oh no, Jack Flaherty pitched a dud. How utterly surprising! (It was not.) Whatever shall the Dodgers do?!?” And here comes the fifth inning! If a drunk Chris Taylor can joke about what you did, you goofed, and you goofed badly.
As an aside, it is not like the Yankees’ fundamentals improved in 2025 or the Blue Jays’ running skills during the World Series were anything to write positively home about. For completeness’ sake, we can also chortle about that goofy double play from National League Championship Series Game 1 with the video below.
And yes, the below thumbnail should hang in the Louvre.
In working on a feature about the anniversary of the 1955 World Series’ championship, I stumbled upon the essays and videos of Daniel Evensen of The Baseball Replay Journal on the topic. Upon reviewing some other aspects of Evensen’s work, I realized he had inadvertently said explicitly what I thought was rotten with the Game 7 broadcast: I hate Fox’s unique style of focusing on gimmicks of zoom-ins to artificially extract as much drama from the game as possible.
Evensen has a ten-minute video on the subject that nails my feelings to a point, focusing on historical broadcasts and relating to the Rojas play at home to save the Dodgers’ season, to demonstrate his point. Once you notice the critiques that Evensen points out, you cannot unsee them to the modern broadcast’s detriment.
As Evensen stated, it takes a knack for understanding the game to televise it properly, which is sorely lacking today. When I watched the Rojas play unfold on the broadcast, I was stunned by how the locus of the action was in the wrong spot: Rojas.
While I was at Game 7, I was fortunate enough to record the play. I have no background in broadcasting, but extemporaneously, I had enough sense to keep the focus on the play’s main point: Isiah Kiner-Falefa, as his run was the only one that mattered.
Granted, my focus was not perfect, but I am not a broadcaster. It would be helpful if broadcasts did not just default to close-ups and gimmicks over showing the positioning of the fielders or runners in key situations. Why the Fox broadcast is trying to emulate movie storytelling, when baseball storytelling is compelling enough on its own, is beyond me.
Movie Night
Which brings me to something I abhor coming out of Queens that is being hailed as innovative. John DeMarsico is the Broadcast Director of the Mets’ SNY broadcast, and his efforts to mimic film with unique angles during the broadcast are being hailed as an innovative way to present baseball.
The following is a forty-minute conversation in which Mr. DeMarsico discusses his craft, the influence of Brian De Palma, and provides examples. After giving the topic some thought, I cannot agree that Mr. DeMarsico is doing positive for the game.
I am not a baseball purist by any measure. I like the Manfred Man. I think the pitch clock is a lifesaver. I think the automated ball-and-strike system will benefit baseball. But you know what I want to do when I want to watch a Brian De Palma movie? I cue up Scarface or The Untouchables. I do not think of mashing my admiration for De Palma with the Dodgers playing baseball.
Mr. Demarsico even admits that some of his gimmicks are meant to lessen the tedium of the regular season and do not serve the game’s storytelling. Saying you are trying to innovate to alleviate the alleged tedium of baseball is a damning statement in and of itself. Thankfully, this “innovation” seems largely confined to the Mets, but I argue that the act reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how baseball is presented.
MLB.com keeping tabs
MLB.com has recently released its “My stats” tab on its streaming service page. I watched a lot of Dodgers baseball on streaming last year, which is a feat considering how I am blacked out for games with the San Francisco Giants and Sacramento Athletics, and I am on the road at the ballpark for another 15-20 games. If you use MLB.com for streaming, you can log in to your account and generate a statistics layout similar to the one shared below.
To quote my annual offseason guilty pleasure, Brockmire: Baseball is the intersection of life and mathematics, where you can predict anything except the moments that change everything. Going to the ballpark is infinitely better than watching on television or streaming, as the park and the crowd have their own energy that one gets only a fraction of during a broadcast.
Still, broadcasts should try to emulate why baseball is so interesting and beautiful without resorting to gimmicks that largely miss the point.
While the season can be and is long, it has its own rhythm and inherently compelling story for a beautiful children’s game so steeped in failure. Is the Dodgers’ broadcast perfect? No. But I am not generally compelled to hit mute or petulantly switch over to listen to Stephen and Rick, which is a small victory.
