Home Run Derby

So Sunday night, during the final game of the Cubs’ sweep of the White Sox at Wrigley Field, ESPN focused a little bit on Ernie Banks – also known as “Mr. Cub.”

They showed the new statue of Ernie outside Wrigley Field, showed Banks’ 500th Home Run at Wrigley Field, and Jon Miller ran down his stats and career accomplishments.

But later in the ballgame, when Eric Patterson hit a Home Run for the Cubs into the right field basket … Joe Morgan said something that wasn’t true.  Morgan said that the basket was installed to keep fans from interfering with Home Run balls and that the fence became known as “Banks Boulevard because he hit a lot of balls into that basket”  – implying (to me anyway) that Banks’ Home Run totals were cheapened by the basket that shortens the field at Wrigley.

Roll tape.

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So last night, I got to watch some baseball for the first time in nearly a week … and it happened to be the White Sox vs the Cubs at Wrigley Field.

Awesome. 

Oh wait … ESPN is broadcasting it.  Joe Morgan.  Crap.
My first thought was “how long does it take for Joe Morgan’s first blunder of the night?”

Two batters.  Seven pitches.  That’s all.

Here’s White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski at the plate in the top of the first inning.  AJP’s a bit of a polarizing figure in Chicago, thanks to the scuffle he had with then-Cubs cather Michael Barrett in 2007 during a game at US Cellular Field …

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So this past Sunday night, during the ESPN Sunday Night Baseball telecast of the Mets-Cubs game – which also happened to be Tom Glavine’s 300th career victory) there was some typically horrible broadcasting.

But this time it wasn’t Joe Morgan’s doing.

During the game, ESPN play-by-play man Jon Miller had these priceless words while the cameras were on the Cubs’ Derrek Lee (paraphrased since I forgot to record the game) …

And now for the Cubs … Carlos Lee

Oops.  Hey Jon – Carlos Lee doesn’t play for the Cubs and he never has. 

Well, during the commercial break, someone on ESPN’s crack production squad must have told Miller that Carlos Lee doesn’t play for the Cubs and that Derrek Lee is the Cubs’ first baseman, so he issued a “correction” (again, paraphrased) …

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