Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Georgetown University’s Newspaper of Record since 1920

The Hoya

Quandaries Abound in Sports World

There are some things about watching sports on television that raise random questions. And I don’t have the answers to any of them.

They can be about the sport or sporting event itself, they can be about how networks provide their coverage, or they can be about anything in between. Here are some of them, and if you know any of this information, please be a kind-hearted person and share it with those in need.

How do they get the grass in the outfield or infield to be different colors? I know it’s got something to do with the length of the lawnmower blades, but what about if they’re doing more than a simple checkered pattern? What about if it’s the team’s logo around the mound? Do they just do that free hand? Does a helicopter hover over the grounds crew to make sure the design is centered and all that?

If they paint the end zone – at a stadium with natural grass – how do they quickly make the grass green again or change colors if another team in the same league plays there (old Giants Stadium) or if a baseball, college or soccer team plays there? By the way, I’m almost positive the guys who paint “HOYAS” in the end zones at MultiSport Facility just wing it.

Who makes the stencils they use to put down team, Super Bowl or World Series logos on the field? Do they just throw old ones out? Like where is the stencil for the Super Bowl XXXVI logo? Wouldn’t that go for a lot on eBay?

When the NCAA tournament comes to town or the NBA playoffs start, how sticky are the logos they put down on the floor at halfcourt, inside the three-point line or near the sideline? How much of a pain is it to redo them if they put them down and there’s a wrinkle in the sticker? Do they have to get new ones? How do they go about taking them off? When they have to peel them off, don’t they do serious damage to people’s fingernails?

How do you get to work as one of the people who keep changing arenas back and forth between basketball and hockey? That has to be kind of cool, right? Don’t they know we can still see the hockey boards during basketball games? They can’t always hide them behind the drapery, curtain things they use.

What’s underneath the ice at hockey games? How long does it take for the ice to melt to put in a new ad? Do people get their hats back after throwing them on the ice? If they don’t, do people just pre-emptively bring crappy hats they don’t want anymore in case they see a hat trick?

Why did it take so long for companies to realize that advertising behind home plate is a good idea? Watch clips from the World Series during the late 1990s. There’s nothing there.

These signs aren’t there anymore, but I remember them and you can still see them in baseball movies – why were no pepper games allowed? What’s so bad about pepper? Professional baseball players can’t play a safe game of pepper?

How do you get to be the guy who plays the horn before a horse race? Is there a huge book somewhere with the all-time list of horse names? Can they be re-used? Is there a panel somewhere that approves name proposals and filters them for inappropriate bathroom or sexual humor?

What kind of sick technology powers the tennis in-or-out review system? The animation on it looks so sketchy, so why do we trust it’s right every time?

Why does Chris Berman refer to Ken Griffey Jr. as Junior Griffey? My dad has the same name as me, but no one has ever called me Junior Finn.

Why is Phil Mickelson’s visor always sponsored by some random company no one’s heard of?

Why do basketball players wear those full arm sleeves? Do they realize they look like people getting ready to perform a rectal cavity search on an elephant? It does look pretty cool, though.

In the opening segment of a network’s telecast of a sporting event, why do the play-by-play guys usually say their color commentators will be along in just a second? Aren’t they just hanging out right there off-camera? Or do they say that because guys like Tim McCarver wait as long as possible to take their pregame bathroom break?

Why do announcers like Jim Nantz or Al Michaels say, for instance, that a certain injured player is “out with an ankle?” But that guy right there on-camera has an ankle, too! I have an ankle, should I not go to class tomorrow?

How many kids playing in the Little League World Series actually do their summer reading?

Do network broadcasting crews (on-air talent, camera men, guys in the truck), especially for baseball games, live like rock stars on tour? Is being the cameraman in deep centerfield as lonely as being a truck driver?

Does the hair gel players like J.J. Redick use ever drip down into their eyes during games?

Do offensive linemen have abs? Is it valid for them to say they have abs but that they are just covered in stuff?

How have they not invented an option where you can turn off the broadcasters and still listen to the crowd noise and the sounds of the game?

Is there a restaurant somewhere in America that serves the Brent Mus-burger?

Why is it called the two-minute warning when there’s an entire half to play after that?

For the World Series or Super Bowl, sometimes the television play-by-play person takes the stadium microphone and does the on-field introductions or introduces the National Anthem and sometimes it’s the stadium public address announcer. How do they do that, first of all? And how mad do the PA announcers get if their boss comes in and tells him Joe Buck can do their job better than they can?

How awkward do referees feel if their microphone doesn’t work when they’re announcing a penalty?

And the age-old question.

How does that magical yellow first-down line work?

Dave Finn is a senior in the College and a former sports editor at THE HOYA. COUCH TALK appears in every third issue of HOYA SPORTS.”

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