Four Bases Is More Than One. Honest.

"You would think that a leadoff walk would lead to more big innings than a leadoff home run. But we've done the research and it turns out that more big innings have come from leadoff home runs than leadoff walks." - Tim McCarver, during last night's Fox ALCS telecast

Now, we won't get into the sheer idiocy of the statement, because that's already been discussed at length in the sports blogosphere, and I try to give FTT Nation something more than the obvious.

No, what I'd really like to examine here is the all-powerful denial of reality and inability to rein in "talent" that's at play. This isn't the first time that McCarver has shared this knowledge with the world at large, amazingly enough. He's that obsessed with the idea that Leadoff Walks are a Communist Plot that will undermine all life as we know it, and that since everyone watching a Tim McCarver game thinks what Tim McCarver thinks, the research is *fascinating*.

A sane network, or a play-by-play partner or producer that cares about whether the telecast has any kind of veracity or quality, would have taken McCarver aside after the first time he went down this path. He'd have then dumped Deion Sanders' bucket of ice water on the old catcher's head, or at the very least, told him that he was making the broadcast look ridiculous, and that he shouldn't do this again.

Instead, look what happened. McCarver went down the primrose path of his own special idiocy, and Fox went with him by association.

Now, for all of you folks who read this site along with a mix of other blogs, including those of a political nature... might be tempted to compare McCarver to some other, particularly myopian, employees of Unkie Rupert's Empire.

As for us, we'll pass from such things, in the hopes that our check from Unkie Rupert is still in the mail. (But seriously, Fox. Retire Buck and McCarver. Let's face it, they want no part of a Tribe-Rockies series anyway. Bring in someone new, who doesn't think leadoff walks are here to steal our jobs, pollute our lands, and make global warmiing worse. You'll be glad you did.)