I swear, if I hear it one more time (or 6,2154 before this game is over, I'm sure) I'm going to [insert gross/angry/ridiculous action here] all over ESPN. These announcers are ruining the game for me. Here's how I think their pregame run-through probably went:
Orel "Bulldog" Hershiser: Looks like it's my dream College World Series! Now, who to root for on national TV without any attempt to hide my bias?
Mike "I wish I still did college football so I could make this kind of verbal love to Tim Tebow too" Patrick: If Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso and the rest of our mother company's college football (and basketball, OMG!!11!!!!1!) announcers can do it for Tim Tebow, then I'll do Fresno State the same way.
Orel: Oo, oo, I call dibs on the word "gamer." Every time I use it during the game, you owe me $5!
Mike: Well, fine then. I'll just lavish any and all praise on them while ignoring Georgia all the while. Maybe then Fresno State will pay me for hyping them up and I can pay you back, O.
This is really getting ridiculous. I think ol' Orel's made almost $100 so far. If he doesn't have anything good stats-wise to talk about a Fresno kid, he just talks about how tough he is. Or how he's so athletic. Or how people always counted him out. Or how his coach is the only one who believes him. And Mike will chime in profoundly with something like "That's why they're a Cinderella. Against this
nationally seeded UGA team. Boy, I'd take any one of them for my team."
[Emphasis added only in font, not in voice]Poythress just beat a throw to the plate with a tremendous facefirst slide, and all Mike can talk about is how great of an arm the rightfielder has.
IT'S FREAKING RICH POYTHRESS THAT HE'S TRYING TO THROW OUT!!!! Rich - bless his heart - had hardly even rounded third, and the hit was a grounder the rightfielder could easily run in on.
And
Lyle Allen made an incredible catch, leaping up and crashing into the leftfield wall, and (guess what?!) Mike and Orel were talking about how great the Fresno kids were at hitting balls well to the opposite field.
And when pitcher
Trevor Holder took an only-
PING!-with-
PING!-aluminum bats shot off his shin and still threw to first for the out, you say? No mention of how Trevor came back to get the next two outs easily. They went back to how hard the little freshman shortstop had hit it. Great work.
And against Stanford, if you'd actually listened to Mike and Orel, you would have thought Stanford had two of their guys playing outfield for us. Mike did it several times over consecutive innings, even with the roster sitting right in front of him.
It almost
almost (actually not even close) makes me wish for the days of
Fox's Sugar Bowl announcing. I still don't know who "Nomar Moreno" is.
Oh well, in the words of the immortal Chad Hume (I just got off the phone with him):
"We don't need the popular vote anyway!"
Agreed. Let's go, Dawgs!
+++++
UPDATE: ESPN now has shown an all-Fresno State game highlight video montage after commercial break complete with a priceless scowl from Trevor after a home run, I'm sure. They've also debuted a series of interviews with the Fresno players that they showed before another Fresno at-bat. No sign of UGA as of yet.
UPDATE #2: Suck on that.
