NASCAR had punished two drivers on the lesser Busch Series for language fouls earlier this year, but they were out of the championship running. Earnhardt was leading the Nextel Cup standings, and the deduction dropped him to second place behind Kurt Busch, who reacted by saying, "Hot s---! Really? That's f-----' weird," and was promptly docked 25 points himself.
This process repeated enough times that your Great Aunt Sadie, driving the '78 Chevy Malibu for Team Polident, is now the Nextel Cup leader.
This might surprise you but I'm in favor of this trend of policing language. I've come a long way since my days as a free-speech extremist. I have a kid now and I'm glad someone is making these c---------s on TV watch their f-----g mouths.
NASCAR went from a minor regional sport to a national obsession thanks in large part to brilliant marketing of the colorful personalities of the drivers. It's about time those drivers were forced to become dull automatons who refuse to show any individuality or say anything that might rock the boat or be otherwise worth listening to.
Aggressive pursuit of this strategy should have NASCAR enjoying the commercial success of professional tennis in no time. Baseball and the other major sports would be g-----n fools not to get on the m-----------g bus.
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Fox cliché watch [PERMALINK]
Fox Sports pre-game host Jeanne Zelasko was fairly subdued Tuesday as the postseason got underway. I think like all great orators she was just starting slowly to set up the audience for the later fireworks.
She turned over the broadcast-opening purple prose duty to a narrator, who intoned sonorously over a montage of shots of some artist chick wandering around Manhattan with a sketch pad, intercut with real and poorly re-created playoff and World Series highlights. Note to Fox production designers: Next time you hire an actor to imitate Carlton Fisk jumping up and down to celebrate his famous home run in the 1975 Series, hire one who jumps like a guy.
This column loves to record the golden words of the Fox broadcast openings in the baseball postseason. I call it the Jeanne Zelasko cliché watch, a feature that last year inspired CBS Marketwatch to call me a bully, which I think was an insult to Zelasko, a professional broadcaster, as though she were some delicate flower who couldn't be criticized.
But never let it be said that I can't be sensitive, so this year it's the Fox Sports cliché watch, in which I'm sure Zelasko will be a star player. Here were the diamonds that fell from the lips of Fox's sketch-montage narrator Tuesday:
"The only thing predictable about October is that it will be just the opposite. And just when you think you've got it all figured out, this month, this game, will leave you breathless. And for every thrill of the autumn chill there will always be unforeseen heartbreak felt by so many. And the only thing to be certain of: There will be a tomorrow.
"And in the midnight of the hour of the fall, baseball magic can be [rewarded?] with one crisp crack of the bat. And the one sure to win will not always win. And the last team standing is anyone's guess, because no way, no how, can you ever script the month of October."
Zelasko then chimed in, repeating the word "script," I think, because it had been inaudible underneath one of Fox's patented pointless sound-effect whooshes: "No, you definitely cannot script it. They know that here, 161st Street and River Avenue. Eighty-one years ago a ballpark was born and a pinstriped legend began in the heart of the Bronx, a tradition of winning that has stood the test of time.
"Ah, but can it take another showdown with the Twins?"
That's not just writing, folks. It's typing! That non-ad-libbed "Ah" really tied the whole thing together, don't you think?
Previous column: Big-a-- playoff preview
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About the writer
King Kaufman is a senior writer for Salon. Visit his column archive.
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Readers keep their eyes on the cliche prize as they cowboy up and invade the House That Jeanne Built for the first Write Like Zelasko Contest.
10/30/03
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