Broadcasters not mentioning a no-hitter in progress

Interesting story the other night from Jered Weaver's no-hitter that is picking up some steam in Los Angeles. Throughout the broadcast, the TV broadcast team refused to mention it. At the beginning/end of the inning I guess they showed a graphic on screen mentioning that the Twins didn't have a hit, but considering that the Angels were up 9-0 after four innings, if you had turned on the game in the middle of the 6th inning you would have had no idea what was going on and probably said "Oh well, Angels are up 9-0, I'll watch something else."

Of course, it's 2012, so all you would have really had to do was check Twitter or Facebook and you would have instantly known Weaver was tossing a no-no, which makes the broadcast team's decision all the more puzzling (they did the same thing last year for Ervin Santana's no-hitter).

Jim Carlisle of the Ventura County Star wrote a great piece yesterday taking Victor Rojas and Mark Gubicza to task: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/may/03/rojas-staying-mum-on-no-hitter-was-a-no-no/

Here's Rojas' explanation:

 

My thoughts have always been the broadcasters job is to tell you what's going on, regardless of the situation. If the analyst doesn't want to say it and doesn't want to move himself or his papers, fine. But the play by play guy has to at least mention the guy hasn't given up a hit yet. The Angels radio guys didn't have a problem in mentioning it, which was nice because I heard it in the first 2 minutes I listened when I turned on the game in the car leaving work.

 

These stupid "reasons" are why play-by-play for the local FSN broadcast negates these guys being called "journalists" or any other sort of equivalent. The fact that they get lumped into the same group as sports writers and other types of actual media bothers.
They need to be lumped in with fanboi bloggers and the "we won" tweeters instead.

 

A few years ago, Freddy Garcia took a no-hitter into the ninth and Hawk Harrelson, as he should have, kept mentioning it. Jay Marriotti ripped his ass the next day in a Sun-Times column for it. To me, and this is saying something, it was the pettiest, most intellectually dishonest column of his career. Shameful.

 

Any broadcaster won't say it's a no hitter during a game because of a supposed "jinx" is an idiot and shouldn't be in the booth.

 

Right? Where was the producer in all this? It's one thing if the announcer doesn't want to say it (and these guys are both ex-pitchers, so I'm sure they have their personal superstitions), but someone needs to be in their ear screaming to mention the no-hitter. If they refuse, get someone on air who will do it. The people behind the microphone are just as responsible and should be ashamed of themselves.

 

I say this as an avid White Sox fan and Hawk Harrelson fan ... but any time a radio/TV broadcaster does something that makes him fall lower on the professionalism scale than the Hawkaroo, they need to find a new line of work. Now.

 

I actually started watching about the sixth inning (thanks to MLB Extra Innings). They would use "code words" rather than the words "no-hitter" during the broadcast. I didn't have a problem with it. I don't believe in jinxes anymore than I believe in Jesus, but as a baseball guy I respected their effort.

My only concern was the confusion about whether it was no-hitter or perfect game. (Even Twitter was confused.) It was not a perfect game because a batter reached on a passed ball after a strike out. Later there was a walk, so it was a moot point.

Interesting discussion...

 

As a baseball fan I firmly believe in the jinx and not doing it. (Yes, go ahead, make fun of me!!)

However, you can say so much without actually saying the words. "Philip Humber has faced 18 batters through six... and not one of them has reached first safely."

"We have potential history in the making in Anaheim for Jered Weaver..."

And yes, what Elliotte said...