Rayhawks and Catwalks: Why this World Series is so hard to Watch

It has been a relatively slow week for NFL fans, but ESPN has managed to make the most of it by filling Sportscenter with the same special reports all week. If you aren’t up-to-date I will recap the week for you. Tony Romo needs attention, Tom Brady’s knee is feeling under the weather, and Santonio Holmes loves to blaze upon that weed. Nothing really out of the ordinary. It’s unfortunate that the current NFL headlines are so incredibly uninteresting, but for some reason they are only slightly more nauseating than the World Series coverage of the Rays and the Phillies. Fox and ESPN were obviously so thrilled with the prospect of a Dodgers vs. Red Sox World Series that they still have not accepted that neither team is involved. So instead of the major storylines that a Sox/Dodgers series would have brought up, we’re treated to the same amount of airtime dedicated to a series with nothing really going for it.

ESPN has scrambled to find ways to make this World Series as interesting as a Dodgers/Red Sox series would have been. The end result was a few modifications to their coverage. The changes have boiled down like this: The story of Manny Ramirez vs. his former team was replaced by a number of ridiculous stories about the Rays’ personnel. Case and point: Rocco Baldelli. Unless you have a degree in some sort of bioscience, or you have repeated high school biology more than twice, then you’ve heard the word “Mitochondria” more in two baseball games than you have in your entire life. It’s not like I don’t care about Baldelli’s ailment….OK that’s a lie. I really don’t care. Probably the easiest change for sports media was the change from Joe Torre to Joe Maddon. Two things I learned about Joe Maddon in the last week:

1) “He’s a baseball guy through and through.” A far cry from the other MLB managers that are implicitly not baseball guy’s.

2) He is a calm manager with a soothing aura. This either means that Maddon is a holistic healer, or he is actually some sort of medical ointment. (Joe Buck leads me to believe he may be a bit of both.)

Fox and ESPN have seen a significant ratings boost coming from the demographic of women age 18-24 that wear pre-frayed MLB hats with a ponytail through the back. This is due to constant coverage of Evan Longoria, James Shields, Chase Utley, Cole Hamels, and the other white guys under 30 on each team. Research, however, still shows that this demographic would have been more receptive to a Cubs/Red Sox World Series, solely because over 85% of women that fall into this demographic currently own a pre-frayed Cubs or Red Sox hat. There are some Yankee hats in the mix too, but nobody really cares about the Yankees anymore.


The real success of the Tampa Bay Rays’ season has been overshadowed by the World Series media feeding frenzy. Apparently the significance of the Rays making it to the World Series is no longer important. Now everything is about “The Trop” and its’ catwalks, or efforts to make the Rays fans look legitimate. The Tampa fans are definitely the worst part of this World Series. A team without tradition finally makes it to the big stage, and the fans are trying to start some traditions of their own. Leave it to Tampa Bay to make blue mohawks and cowbells their tradition. Instead of coming to games equipped with baseball knowledge, Tampa fans, like Carrot Top have resorted to awful gimmicks to make them unique.

During the agonizing wait for the end of World Series coverage, there are some bright spots. There’s more football this weekend. Coverage of the Cowboys has subsided for the moment, even with Tony Romo struggling to get his team on every television in the US. The Lions loss this week will be over quickly, meaning that all three Lions fans will be able to pass out assured that their Lions won’t win.

There actually is some great baseball being played, but it is hard to disregard the Fox sportscasters and just watch the game. So while there is no football being played, I suggest watching the World Series in another language if possible, or playing Deadspin sportscaster bingo during the games. And don’t forget to cash in on your free taco on Tuesday 2-6 pm local time.

$5 bet that Joe Buck will say that mitochondria are the powerhouses of the cell.