More Lame COVID-19 Media Coverage

Image courtesy Hillerich & Bradsby Company - Louisville Slugger

If you follow this blog regularly, you know I'm a big baseball fan.  Not just of "The Show" but of all levels down including minor league baseball, college baseball, high school and little league baseball.  I like watching them all.  (Just don't ask me to sit through a T-ball game.  I have sit through more than my share of them and will never willingly go to another one again regardless of what little ones are playing),

Without any MLB baseball, the MLB app has decided to show "daily highlights".  How can there be daily highlights when all of the players are in a COVID-19 quarantine you ask?  The answer is there are no highlights.  MLB Network has taken to showing big league athletes playing video games on their devices and then taking highlights from that player's game against a computer.

Desperate times call for desperate measures especially when you have time and space to fill.  But, no matter how you cut this, it is lame!

Are You Thoroughly Bored?

With the exception of a trip to the grocery store and a trip to check on an elderly parent I've not been out of my house in quite some time except to go for a walk and do yard work.  And frankly I am bored.  You can't imagine how much I look forward to my daily hour long walk and to even working in the yard.  And, I detest yard work.  Outside of mowing, I hate to trim and pull weeds and all the rest of the crap that goes with yard work.

I would like to think we are on the down side of the virus but from what the local talking heads say, it will be three to four weeks before it peaks here.  And what annoys me even more is that a lot of people still aren't taking this thing seriously.  They aren't staying home.  There is a renter up the street who uses it to have a couple parties each week and God only knows where some of the lowlife guests have been.

The bottom line is until people start following the rules from the experts it's not going to go away.  So take this advice.  Stay safe and keep your butt home!

Laughable Programming during the Coronavirus

I retired from 42 years of working in the broadcast industry almost three years ago.  Over the years I heard a lot of strange things, dumb talk show hosts, announcers and bizarre programming.  But, two sister radio stations in St. Louis have played some of the strangest content you can imagine during this COVID-19 pandemic.

The station that like to call itself the "Sports Voice of America" has gotten lazy and is re-broadcasting every St. Louis Cardinal baseball game from September 2011.  The Cardinals won the World Series that year after being eleven games out of first place in August.  (For the record, all MLB games this season thus far have been cancelled and this outlet was the Cardinals' flagship station when they won the series). OK, but this radio station, KMOX, airs baseball games from September 2011 and then makes its announcers act as if they are in real time.  So, the night before last I heard the sports guy saying "the Cards are now just four back of the last wild card spot".  What the What?  Just plain dumb.  I am embarrassed for the poor sports guys that have to pretend its nine years ago.

If you think that's stupid, another St. Louis radio station decided to broadcast Christmas music for people under home quarantine.  Are you freaking kidding me?  Christmas music in March?  For example have you ever heard "The Little Drummer Boy" on St. Patrick's Day?  I have.  KEZK radio must have gotten the message from its listeners, or lack thereof, since they are back to their standard format.  Apparently, the station's attempt to make its listeners happy during a pandemic was a miserable failure.

Let's hope the remaining 45 other stations in this market don't also lose their minds.