According to Wikipedia, comic relief is defined as, “the inclusion of a humorous character or scene or witty dialogue in an otherwise serious or dramatic work, often to relieve tension.” We were treated to some unexpected comic relief during the first game of the American League Wild Card Series, thanks to NBC’s production team.
Last night was a complete disaster for the Boston Red Sox, no doubt. It’s hard to find anything funny about a game where you:
-Lost 9-0 at your biggest rival’s yard,
-Saw your
manager make some questionable decisions,
-Saw your starter fail to go five innings (though he left with the game in tact),
-Collected just three hits compared to approximately 38,000 whiffs,
-Hit the ball into the outfield on, like, five occasions,
-Saw one of your franchise players leave early due to (what I can only assume is at the time of writing) an injury, and
-Your bullpen got knocked around all over the place.
Not much joy to be found there whatsoever. However, I gotta call a spade a spade: The music situation that NBC/Peacock had on their hands during the top of the fifth inning—before everything really turned to shit—was hysterical in my book.
In case you missed it: NBC’s broadcast showed a replay of Caleb Durbin’s double play (one of the few bright spots for Boston on Tuesday) coming out of the break and into the start of the fifth. Typical network stock music was playing underneath it, nothing out of the ordinary. The highlight stopped, but the music kept going…and going…and going…and going…
Commentary be damned, action on the field be damned, the band played on. I wish I had a full replay of the broadcast to time exactly how long it was playing for, but it had to be for at least two minutes. Two minutes isn’t a lot of time in the wild ride we call life, sure, but when generic TV bed music is playing nonstop during a tense playoff game when you aren’t expecting it, two minutes feels like an eternity.
I know someone—or some people—were probably scrambling behind the scenes to get that music turned down so that we could hear the expert musings of Joe Girardi clearly, but funny’s funny. That, in my book, was a hysterical moment. What a way to cut the tension of a stressful postseason night: some unintentional comedy. It played out like a “Family Guy” cutaway sketch, where the fact that it went on for so long only made it that much more hilarious.
I’m not ashamed to admit that it got to the point where I had tears in my eyes laughing. I don’t know if the moment was just so ridiculous, I don’t know if my sense of humor is just so stupid at this point, I don’t know if it was because of how the snafu happened right in the middle of a high-intensity game where the chips were on the table for the Sox, and I don’t know if it’s a combination of all of those things. Honestly, I don’t care. That was a nice, brief moment of levity before I promptly went back to having a heart attack.
Sometimes, you just gotta laugh, right? Just for your own sake? I’m sure you woke up in a bad mood after last night’s loss; I’m none too pleased either, and things are looking dire for the 2026 season. Our backs are officially against the wall, and that’s an awful feeling to have. But a wise son of a son of a sailor said it best: “If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”
To even bring it back into the game itself, Ben Rice’s late grand slam was even kind of funny! At that point, that might as well have happened, right? Hit a granny to make it 9-0, who cares? We were cooked anyways, might as well make it a laugher! I have to laugh or else I’d lose my marbles!
So thank you, NBC production team, for you inadvertent DJ set in the middle of Game One. It was a great piece of comic relief during an otherwise tense evening. I hope no one lost their job over it—and if any NBC heads are reading this for some reason, please don’t can anyone over that. I appreciate that I was given at least one thing to be happy about during that disastrous display at Yankee Stadium.
Now it’s time to wipe that smile off my face and continue to mope about how much of a clusterfuck that game was.
