Terry Francona filled in for Tim McCarver during Games 1 & 2 of the ALCS on Fox alongside Joe Buck to rave reviews.  The former Red Sox manager pinch hit for the network while McCarver, Buck's partner since 1996, had a minor health-related procedure.  For many baseball fans, the partnership of Buck & McCarver has grown tiresome.  Quotes from McCarver like "a game of oblique angles, now a game of oblique injuries" is why he's on our Mount Rushmore. 

Francona gave hope to viewers for a breath of fresh air being breathed into a dormant Fox booth.  It was an admittedly risky move by Fox, but one I thought would be certainly worth the chance.  Here's what I wrote last week about Francona's stop in the broadcast booth:

"Francona's addition has the potential of being a home run.  Fox has found some success in the past bringing in analysts either still in or just out of baseball - Al Leiter's work in the Cubs/Marlins NLCS stands out off the top of my head.  Other managers like Jeff Van Gundy and Jon Gruden were able to add interesting insights in their early days as broadcasters being just removed from coaching as well."

Richard Deitsch had more praise for Francona's work:

"Forget about the mechanics and how smooth Francona was or was not coming in and out of breaks: He was insightful, and genuinely funny, both valuable commodities in broadcasting."

But most importantly, baseball fans quickly warmed to Francona's style of analysis.  Here's a sampling of the overwhelming positive assessments of Terry Francona from Twitter... 

Compare that response to these tweets from Fox's Game 4 coverage of the ALCS last night with McCarver in the booth joining Joe Buck and Francona watching from home...

I see a difference in those tweets and so do you... so why don't Fox and the networks...

The next big TV rights deal on the horizon is for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups (you may remember them as the ones the USA got bribed beat out of hosting by Russia and Qatar) and other FIFA tournaments from 2015-2022.  Three networks - ESPN, Fox, and NBC are going to Zurich next week to FIFA headquarters to make bids for the package.  John Ourand of Sports Business Journal has more details:

"Given the growing popularity of soccer in the U.S., plus the skyrocketing cost of live sports, any new bid should see a healthy increase.  Once bids are submitted Oct. 19, FIFA is expected to decide whether to accept one of the bids later that week. FIFA could either accept one of the bids or go back to the networks if the bids are too close. ESPN, which has carried World Cup games in some fashion since ‘82, will be represented in Zurich by Exec VP/Content John Skipper and Senior VP/Programming & Global X Scott Guglielmino. Fox Sports is sending a small group led by Fox Soccer Exec VP & GM David Nathanson. NBC will send a delegation, but it's not known who will be in it."

Skipper is one of ESPN's top executives and the driving force behind the comittment to the 2010 World Cup and ESPN's overall growth in televised soccer.  One only has to look at the tripleheader of soccer yesterday to see ESPN's continued focus.  Earlier this year, NBC snatched MLS and USA soccer rights from Fox to make their entry into the game.  

Fox has started televising EPL games opposite NFL windows this fall and the numbers have been impressive, even on tape delay.  They took the Champions League away from ESPN as well, although their overall coverage on Fox and Fox Soccer lacks the depth and quality of ESPN.  NBC is still an unknown entity in the soccer field, but they obviously are very motivated to start acquiring games.  This FIFA package isn't just the two World Cups, but Women's WCs and plenty of live programming for an all sports network desperate for just that.  Other hypotheticals would certianly come into play including announcers Fox or NBC may tab if they win these rights.

I'd favor ESPN with about a 50% chance, NBC around 30% and Fox at 20%.  As a fan of soccer, part of me is keen to see ESPN hold onto World Cup rights and continue the growth in their coverage and in the sport as a whole.  ESPN's decision to go all-in with their soccer coverage is possibly the best thing to happen for the sport in this country in the last decade.  With how much ESPN has poured into soccer over the last few years, it would be a major surprise to see them outbid for these tournaments, but I would expect both Fox and NBC to not go down without a fight.

[Sports Business Journal]

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As you've all heard by now, Hank Williams Jr. was ousted by ESPN; regarding to his long-standing relationship with the musical introduction to "Monday Night Football."  If you have no idea what's going on, but find your self rowdily humming along to the MNF intro you are going to be disappointed.  AA has been covering this issue Here, Here, and Here, if you want to catch up.

Hank was a little too rowdy in an interview on the show "Fox and Friends," comparing Obama to Hitler and etc etc etc.  Basically, long story short, there will no longer be any more Monday night party.  In response to getting canned, Hank released a new song called "Keep the Change" ripping ESPN and the "United Socialist States of America." 

Ohhhhhhh, them here some fighting words:

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Back in August we told you about ESPN's new Total Quarterback Rating, just their next step on the road to total sports domination.  With the laughability of the new metric and the audacity of ESPN to come up with their own statistic to judge the art of quarterbacking, it was only a matter of time before the WWL ended up with egg on their face.  I mean, even in THE YEAR OF THE QUARTERBACK, an idea like ESPN's QBR was bound to backfire.  Enter Week 5 and two mythological figures... Aaron Rodgers and Tim Tebow.

Yes, ESPN's two favorite quarterbacks.  One is deservedly being recognized as the best QB in the league, and yes, I'm talking about Aaron Rodgers.  But, somehow, someway, ESPN's infallable ultimate QB metric decided that Rodgers (who was 26/39 for 396 yards and two TDs against Atlanta) was inferior in Week 5 to Jesus Christ Quarterback himself... Tim Tebow.  Well, since ESPN's new QBR is so thorough and fantastic, Tebow mush have had one hell of a game!  And, looking at the numbers, how could anyone think Rodgers had a better performance than Tebow, who threw for 334 yards, ran for 212 yards, scored 8 total TDs, and rescued children from a burning building in the Broncos comprehensive victory over the Chargers...

Wait... what's that?  The Broncos didn't win?  And Tebow didn't have 500 yards of offense and 8 TDs? Oh really! You mean he only played half the game?  And his stat line was 4/10 for 79 yards, 6 rushes for 38 yards and had two total TDs?  Oh... well then yeah, this new ESPN QBR must really be awesome.  And don't worry, ESPN isn't incessantly hyping Tebow's QBR rating in their endless, horrifying, nauseating, nonstop TebowMania coverage or anything.

But, the mere fact that ESPN's GREATEST STATISTICAL METRIC TO COMMEMORATE THE YEAR OF THE QUARTERBACK ranked Tim Tebow ahead of Aaron Rodgers isn't laughable enough on its own.  On ESPN's Stats & Info Blog (who knew?), there are not one, but two articles justifying why Tebow was ranked ahead of Aaron Rodgers.  Now, how great can your shiny new stat be if your stats department has to write two separate blog posts to justify the ranking?  To save you the grief, here are five key points supposedly justifying why Tebow ranked ahead of Rodgers and why it doesn't make sense...

Craig James continues his meteoric ascent in the Pammies taking first and third place this week.  What explains this phenomenon?  Oh yea... people despise Craig James and the dumb things he says.  His lead over Pam Ward is now up to 20 points in the standings.  I actually thought about giving Craig James the points for Gus Johnson's quote at #4 this week, but that would be in violation of Rule 18-A in the Pammy bylaws.  (Oh they exist, believe me.)  Gus makes his first appearance of the year, as do Scott Van Pelt and ABC's #1 play by play man.  Welcome to the show, Brent!  The envelope please...

10) "I don't wanna say that snap was way inside, but even Ryan Howard would've swung at it" - Gary Danielson (via AlexFromBuffalo)

9) "LSU is hammering LSU" - Scott Van Pelt (via Michael Necci)

8) "Harris, steps into it, almost incomplete." - Mike Patrick (via SBisho12) The pass was incomplete. It was nearly intercepted.

7) "You have to read the play, then you have to play football" - Matt Millen (via crippenstation)

6) "You cant make that play in the Big Red Shootout." - Lou Holtz (via David Reeves) commenting on OU/Texas highlights.

5) "Plenty of time and four timeouts" - Mike Patrick (via MrIronD) late in the Miami/VT game when Virginia Tech was driving for the go-ahead TD.

4) "The son of the great CRAIG JAMES from SMU with the score" - Gus Johnson (via ConnorKeisel).  There's a hole in the world tonight...

3) "Texas is the hungrier team. they're playing with fire in their hair." - Craig James (via bjo109)

2) "When they are in the Wildcat, you can bet on them either running or throwing" -Brent Musburger (via jshaddo)

1) "This is why Lamar Miller averages eight and a half carries per touch." - Craig James (via DWW_1992)

Week 5 Top 5 -

1) Craig James 58 pts

2) Pam Ward 38 pts

3) Matt Millen 33 pts

4) Gary Danielson 28 pts,

T5) Beth Mowins 13 pts, Brett Favre 13 pts

Others receiving votes - Lou Holtz 11 pts, Brent Musburger 9 pts, Artrell Hawkins 9 pts, Warrick Dunn 9 pts, Dan Hawkins 9 pts, Jenn Brown 9 pts, Mike Patrick 9 pts, Sean McDonough 8 pts, Gus Johnson 7 pts, Lee Corso 7 pts, Wendi Nix 7 pts, Steve Martin 7 pts, Tom Cole 7 pts, Jesse Palmer 6 pts, Andre Ware 5 pts, Alex Flanagan 4 pts, Mike Morgan 4 pts, Joe Tiller 3 pts, Keith Jones 3 pts, Desmond Howard 3 pts, Shaun King 3 pts, Danny Kanell 2 pts, Steve Beuerlein 2 pts, Scott Van Pelt 2 pts, Kevin Kugler 1 pt, Eric Collins 1 pt.

The Full Week 7 Announcing Schedule will be coming soon, where you can find the dates and times of games and all the announcing pairings as well.  Then, make sure you check back every Saturday for the Pam Ward Chronicles and another week of the Pammies!

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In case you may have missed it, David Stern is trying to kill the NBA.  Why?  Nobody knows.  Is it greed?  Power?  Money?  Just for the hell of it?  Your guess is as good as mine.  All I know is the good feelings about the NBA being as popular and as relevant as it has been in the post-MJ era is going to come crashing down quicker than Adam Morrison's NBA career.  Idiot billionaire owners terribly mismanaging contracts given out to mediocre millionaire players has largely gotten us into the mess we're in.  So, the first two weeks of the regular season have been canceled by Stern and the rest of the season, Christmas, New Year's Eve, the Super Bowl, and Springtime are likely on his agenda of destruction as well.

One of the consequences of the lockout will be much less airtime for some of our favorite television personalities.  Think about it - no Marv Albert, Mike Breen, or Kevin Harlan.  No Steve Kerr.  No bizarre tangents on pop culture from Jeff Van Gundy.  No Reggie Miller... ok, perhaps that last one is a stretch.  Most of all though, no Inside the NBA and Charles Barkley.  Chuck went on the Waddle & Silvy show in Chicago to chat about the lockout and had some interesting things to say.  Enjoy it, because you may not hear much from Chuck for the next few weeks... or months... or years...

First, on the surprise in seeing games cancelled...

"Well, anybody who's surprised has just got to be an idiot."  

"I was the first person on the record, I didn't think they'd play at all this season... if they take 50/50 that's their only chance of playing this season."

That's encouraging.

On the business of the lockout and the real-life effect in seeing games cancelled...

"There's two groups of people I feel bad for, I feel bad for the people who work for these teams because they're going to start laying off some of these people soon... and the people who work at these arenas, it's unfortunate."

"I'm very uncomfortable giving away people's jobs.  Do we have too many teams in the NBA?  Of course we do. the talent pool isn't that deep.  I dont feel comfortable saying they dont need a team in that city when there's a lot of people who depend on that team."

One of the best in the sports media, CNBC's Darren Rovell, is taking the Bart's People route and bringing some of these human interest stories to light on his Twitter account...

My favorite is HANDLE WITHHELD losing money from gambling on NBA games.  My guess is that it's an actual NBA player...

On the key issues of the lockout...

"I think David Stern is the best commish in sports, I listen to both of these sides very carefully and i dont listen to the BS.  If you notice Stern said in his statement last night, he mentioned every small market team.  There's two things happening here, these owners are going to protect small market teams... we're not going to have 20 bad teams like baseball and players go to the Yankees or Red Sox.  He mentioned every small market team, and that's what this is about, they're not going to let just the big markets dominate like in baseball.  These players aren't going to get a better deal than 50/50, these owners are in it for the duration."

On his plans during the lockout...

"I'm gonna play a lot of bad golf and I'm gonna take two days off a month and get my check.  I will tell you this, I am actually believe it or not leaning towards donating it (my paycheck) to charity to be honest.  I don't think it's cool for me to take money I haven't earned.  I'm either going to defer it or give it to charity.  If these guys hold out all season, it's gonna be a lot of money."

So, to recap - anyone who didn't see a lockout coming is an idiot, this lockout isn't ending anytime soon, Chuck may donate his TNT salary during the lockout, this lockout isn't ending anytime soon, and he'll spend a lot of time on the golf course.  Let's hope this means there will be an opportunity for a Haney Project sequel.  Perhaps he can make an appearance on "Wipeout" or start "Chuck vs" or make a spinoff of "Man vs Food."  Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll eat David Stern.  Give us something during the lockout, Chuck!

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Thank you for all your awesome feedback on possible names for the NFL version of the Pammies that will start up this week.  We've taken the best suggestions from your comments and tweets and placed them as nominees below is a poll for you to vote.  There are six to choose from and you can vote for one choice every day until Friday at noon.  We tried to cover a diverse area of NFL broadcasting with analysts and play by play announcers, studio personalities, and even one retired announcer that was suggested by one of our brave servicemen in Iraq.  

We'll reveal the winner on Sunday for our first ever ______ies Open Thread.  Leave us the most awful quotes you hear in the comments of our thread or tweet us at @awfulannouncing during NFL games and for studio shows as well.  There is way too much ridiculousness on Sunday pregame shows to not have it be a significant part of these awards!  Since the original Pammies run Saturday/Monday/Wednesday, the NFL version will see a Sunday Open Thread, Tuesday nominees, and Thursday winners with updated standings.  Having followed the NFL closer than any other sport, I have no doubt this is going to be a lot of fun.  Without further adieu, here are the nominees...

Poll Closed.  Check back Sunday to find out the winner!

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While consensus has been Urban Meyer's next career move as rescuing the Ohio State football program after his foray into broadcasting, the university most rumored with his name recently has actually been another Big Ten school - Penn State.  There have been numerous reports on Meyer's potential as the next football coach at Penn State.  There's even already been rumored contact between Meyer and Penn State's President and Athletic Director.  Of course, Joe Paterno may have something to say about giving up a job he's held for 46 years as well.  But, if Joe Pa happened to step down at the end of the season and a national championship winning coach was in place to make that transition into the next era of Penn State football a little easier... perhaps Urban Meyer could find his home in Happy Valley.  (I wonder what his family thinks of all these coaching rumors...)

As fate would have it, Urban Meyer just happened to be in State College for Penn State's victory over the Iowa Hawkeyes.  If Meyer wanted to slow down the rumor mill or the intensification of stories linking him to Penn State... using the phrase "our quarterbacks" when referring to the Nittany Lions isn't going to help.  Rookie broadcasting mistake?  Freudian slip?  Or a sign of that those players in blue and white will be Meyer's quarterbacks next year after all?  If the latter is ultimately the case, good luck, Urban.

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It's impossible for me to view the monopoly ESPN has over the sports world and the unthinkable amount of money that comes in and out of Bristol without thinking of Gordon Gekko.  As more and more is revealed about the way ESPN does business at the very top level of the company, the classic "greed is good" philosophy comes to the forefront.  If one is wary of the evils of big business, perhaps ESPN's dominance troubles you immensely and you're thinking about the first steps to Occupy Bristol.  If you believe in the virtues of the capitalist ethic, perhaps you applaud ESPN for successfully building a multi-billion dollar empire from scratch.  

As time goes on though, and reporting gets better about television rights deals and what happens behind the scenes, we read more and more stories about the power and infulence of ESPN away from Chris Berman's annoying schtick, Pardon the Interruption, SportsCenter, and what we see and hear from ESPN.  There's the ESPN that we love as sports fans in terms of their top notch sports broadcasting.  There's the ESPN we don't love as much with Skip Bayless shouting and Tim Tebow talked about ad nauseum.  Then, there's the corporate ESPN that we just don't know too much about as sports fans, but are beginning to learn more about.  Networks are becoming increasingly focused on rights deals for televised sports as prices skyrocket and the value of broadcasting live sports dramatically increases.  The Russian Roulette game of college football realignment has highlighted the high stakes involved.  That's where perhaps the most alarming example of ESPN's greed and power was unveiled. 

One quote from a Boston Globe story on Boston College and realignment of the ACC and Big East from BC athletic director Gene DeFilippo has hit the blogs.  In a nutshell, Boston College supposedly blocked UConn from being one of the new additions to the ACC to protect their New England turf. (Evidently New England isn't big enough for the both of them, because, ya know, the Northeastern United States isn't big enough for the BC and UConn football programs.)  One of the best college football writers, Pete Thamel of the New York Times, also had the quote and broke down the story:

“We always keep our television partners close to us,” DeFilippo told The Globe. “You don’t get extra money for basketball. It’s 85 percent football money. TV — ESPN — is the one who told us what to do. This was football; it had nothing to do with basketball.”

There's several levels at play here, but the sentiment that ESPN TOLD US WHAT TO DO is stunning for an athletic director to admit publicly.  Now, what exactly did ESPN tell BC or the ACC to do?  Did they tell the ACC which teams to poach from which conference?  Did they advise BC to focus on football?  Did they simply inform the conference that football dollars were the major player here... or was there something a bit more unseemly happening?  More from Thamel in the New York Times:

DeFilippo’s comments give credence to the popular theory that ESPN encouraged Pittsburgh and Syracuse’s exit from the Big East in the wake of the Big East’s turning down ESPN’s billion dollar television deal in May during an exclusive negotiating window. ESPN has a billion dollar deal with the A.C.C., making that move either savvy business or collusion, depending on one’s perspective.

The ACC and ESPN both denied the claims of DeFilippo, who obviously said way too much... but keep in mind this is the same network that also told us "Bruce has resumed his assignments."  Is it too hard to believe ESPN is instructing conferences on which team to poach?  Is it too hard to believe ESPN is in on all these realignment meetings and discussions?  Is it too hard to believe ESPN and the networks are moving the chess pieces of realignment around the board...

American League Championship Series.  Extra innings.  Walk off home run.  Grand slam.  

These are the ingredients of one of the most exciting baseball plays of the year.  In fact, it's the first "official" walk off grand slam in MLB postseason history (baseball afficionados may remember Robin Ventura's walk off grand slam for the Mets in Game 5 of the 1999 NLCS, but that was only credited as a 1 run single).  One would think this would be cause for one of the more boisterous, enthusiastic calls of the sports year.

Enter Joe Buck...

I've heard store closings delivered with more passion.  And I get the appeal of announcers wanting to step aside and let the noise of the crowd and the moment speak for itself, but that usually comes after a more vibrant call than "in the air to left... down the line... this ball... ends it."  Instantly, our followers on Twitter began to take notice...

It does sound like Buck's voice is getting moderately better, which is good... but maybe someone needs to check his pulse too.  The funny thing is, I thought Joe sounded more excitable than usual during the NFL Playoffs and the Super Bowl last year.  In fact, I thought he was (relatively) amped up for the big game in February and did well.  That clearly hasn't made the transition to the MLB postseason.  Maybe Joe watches this video before every baseball broadcast for inspiration...

With the rave reviews Terry Francona received, it'll be very interesting to see whether or not Fox can (or wants to) persuade him to stay in the booth and make it a three man team with Tim McCarver and Buck for the rest of the postseason.  It'll be nice to see McCarver in good health back in the booth, but Francona gives Fox's baseball coverage the spark of life and freshness it needs.

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