I never thought I'd have back-to-back postings about the back and forth game with the strange scoring, but the NYT apparently has kept their reporter Sarah Lyall stationed out at the Billie Jean King tennis center at Flushing Meadows for what might be the duration of the U.S. Open. I'm sure some people would be envious of this assignment.
Tennis at this site is a big deal here in New York, as I've already noted. This has to be true given the coverage the Times is giving what to me is a nice sport to play for exercise and bragging rights, but has absolutely no interest for me to plop down in front of a TV and watch.
To show you how tennis ranks in the interest of the NYT editors consider that there were two stories I think filed from Saratoga's recently completed 40 day meet.
Of course I'm sure there are those that don't know what goes on in Saratoga Springs for the 40 day meet that starts in mid-July and runs through Labor Day. It is horse racing, once the most popular spectator sport.
I'm not bitter about this, but I really don't like tennis. Ms. Lyall's latest piece comes on the heels of her prior piece about IBM's artificial software called Watson selecting video segments to compile for tennis highlight segments, with advertising, of course.
Ms. Lyall latest piece is about two radio broadcasters who are providing play-by-play of the U.S. Open for BBC 5 radio. That's right, radio, which seems to still be a medium that those across the pond absorb a good deal of. Ms. Lyall, who lived and worked there for many years before coming back to her New York roots, knows the English. She's tried to explain them in a book, 'The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British.'
So, when she tells us, "The U.K. is a radio-loving nation," with BBC 5 garnering 10 percent of the adult population weekly, five million listeners, she knows of what she speaks. This number seems entirely consistent with the image I have of Brits, even if it only comes from Masterpiece Theater and Masterpiece Mystery, brought to us by Darlene Shiley (heart valve money) and Conrad Prebys and Debbie Turner, and "other viewers like you."
Those "other viewers" are never me. I haven't been giving PBS money for over 40 years, ever since Crane Davis brought us Team Canada hockey in 1972 when no one else would. I can imagine the Brits listening to radio and remembering WW II, getting bombed daily, rationing, Winston Churchill, and jars of jam, washed down with a pint of something that's not milk.
The British broadcasters, Gigi Salmon and Russell Fuller, are perched high in a broadcasting booth at Arthur Ashe stadium. "High" is a word that barely describers the level they're at. They could be in the control tower at nearby LaGuardia Airport directing plane traffic on the two runways.
The described play-by-play of the announcers reminds me of listening to Marv Albert bringing us the Ranger games on radio in the 60s. There was no cable TV then, and Ranger games were usually only broadcast on Saturdays on Channel 9, always an away game. Marv's long-time sponsor for these radio broadcasts was Devoe paint, and to this day when I use the paint (it is good paint), I can't help hearing Marv tell me where Harry Howell is with the puck.
I can't imagine radio tennis gaining any listeners in this country. The sponsors for tennis sell things visually. Imagine trying to induce you to buy a Rolex, BMW, or a Mercedes on the radio? Perhaps in England they do ads for bubble and squeak, but not here.
Ms. Lyall seems to be a welcome new contributor to the Sports page, having now come back from across the pond, and her repatriation in the homeland. Once the U.S., Open is over perhaps she'll find Belmont and Maggie Wolfendale and Gabby Gaudet, along with Paul Lo Duca. She can skip Andy Serling. The price (odds) is never right for Andy.
To repeat, I do not like tennis. But I will read about it now and then.
http://www.onofframp.blogspot.com
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