TV Guide (January 8, 1954)

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SPORTS Wonder what the boys are talking about? T HERE have appeared here from time to time unenthusiastic ref¬ erences to sports-announcers on radio and television who don’t know what they’re talking about. Now a demurrer must be entered with regard to broadcasters who. know too much of what they’re talking^ about. (Too little? Too much? Won’t the bum ever be satisfied?) This isn’t a frivolous complaint. A man so overwhelmingly knowing smothers the auditor under a bushel of technical obscurities. Here, for example, are just a few of the terms employed by one an¬ nouncer during one football game. “Stutter play .... A long hook .... A hook-in .... The draw play .... Check-out pass .... They flared him out .... Loaf-of-bread pass . . . .” If, just once, anybody attempted a plain old garden-variety forward pass or a lateral or an end run or a line buck, it escaped notice entirely. It looked like a football game but it sounded like the Finnish National sport of Pesapallo. Preoccupied as this guy was with his stutter plays and loaf-of-bread passes, he had time for only scanty mention of names—who carried the ball, threw a block or made the tackle. In this particular ball game, the camera offered the bewildered viewer precious little help. When the direc¬ tor and the cameraman know their business and have reasonable con¬ fidence in themselves, football lends itself to television better than any other sport—better, even, than boxing. The telescopic lens brings the view¬ er closer to the action than he can possibly be in any seat in the stadium. In a close-up it is possible to see the hole open in the line, the fullback go barreling through as the backer-up moves to intercept him. If the director and cameraman are timid, however, wary of being misled by a fake, then the only close-ups they give you show the rear ends of players in a huddle, or the referee asking a guy whether he prefers the penalty or the gain. When a play is on, you see half the field, dotted with 22 infinitesimal pinheads. You can’t see the ball, but at least you’re not following some decoy on a fake buck. That’s how it was in this particular game. You needed more than bifocals to see the play, and a glossary to un¬ derstand the description. 23