Fox Sports tosses fast curve ball, tricks TV viewers

There’s nothing like being bamboozled by something on TV.  No, not one of those late night-early morning paid programming 30-minute pitches.

It’s sports.  A baseball game, to be exact.

And it really singed Grumpy Editor.

After a hard day at the keyboard on Friday, it was time to kick off the shoes, settle back and watch an early-season baseball game.  Checking the listings in TV Week, which comes with the Sunday paper and verifying it in the same-day TV listings from the morning paper, both showed the Los Angeles Angels playing the Minnesota Twins in a live game. 

Last two innings were viewed.  Since the Twins play in an indoor stadium, one cannot tell whether it is day or night.

But Grumpy Editor discovered Fox Sports West 2, part of the News Corp. family, is rather tricky.  No indication in the upper right or upper left, or anywhere else on the screen, that the game was played the previous night. 

Simply, it was a replay with no clue that the game already was covered in the morning sports sections.

That game from Minnesota was followed by another baseball matchup on the same cable channel:  Texas Rangers at Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim…from Anaheim.  Wow!  The Angels made the 1,513-mile journey from Minneapolis to their home ball park in about a minute.  But this time it really was live.

Network and cable television operations, in many cases, like to hide the fact that taped shows are days or weeks old.  Properly, C-Span quite often, especially with speeches or interviews, indicates the original airing date in an upper corner.

But programs on other networks, including NBC’s Tonight Show with Jay Leno and CBS’ Late Show with David Letterman, conceal original airing dates of vintage shows.  Thus, it’s not unusual to hear tired Thanksgiving jokes near Valentine’s Day or even a year later.

Grumpy Editor advocates the FCC --- for talk shows, sports events and other time-sensitive happenings --- should issue a ruling making it mandatory that original date of airing be indicated in the upper right-hand corner of replayed material.

What do you think?  Unload your thoughts here.