Sunday, August 26, 2001
Sports on TV-Radio
Why FSN missed Reds' rally
By John Fay
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Sophiscated computers and electronics are great, but, somewhere along the line, a human enters into the equation. And humans mess up from time to time. That's what to led to the switching fiasco Monday night at Fox Sports Net. Some nameless, faceless individual in New York hit the wrong buttons. That's why you saw the NASCAR show instead of the Reds-St. Louis Cardinals game from 10 to 10:19 p.m.
“It was basically our fault,” said Steve Liverani, FSN general manager for Ohio. “We gave the person very specific instructions. It was pretty straightforward. They misundertood the instructions.
“It was human error.”
On the 128 Reds games this year, Monday's was one you didn't want to go off the air for 19 minutes at 10 o'clock. The Reds were in the midst of rallying for the tying run in the ninth. And the run scored on one of the oddest plays in baseball.
“It couldn't be a 12-0 game,” Liverani said. “It had to be the most exciting game of the year. It's really frustrating because we pride ourselves in delivering hometown sports.”
The error could not be corrected by simply flipping a switch. The computer had to be reprogrammed. So, while FSN was aware of the glitch immediately — the people in production truck were monitoring — it took 19 minutes to correct it.
“Without getting too technical, suffice it to say we had to go through a sequence of steps to fix it,” Liverani said.
Fox Sports Net did get back on in time to see the most exciting play of the year — Ken Griffey Jr.'s inside-the-park home run in the 11th to win it.
There's no excuse for what happened, but there are some extenuating circumstances. Fox Sports Net in Ohio is a complicated network. Different territories get different programs. For instance, that night you had the Reds game starting at 7 p.m. and the Indians game starting 10 p.m.
“We're doing what we can to make sure it doesn't happen again,” Liverani said.
PICK'S NEW GIG: Jeff Piecoro will be the new analyst on the University of Kentucky Radio Network.
Piecoro is familiar to local viewers and listeners. He is the co-host of Real Reds on Fox Sports Net. He also does the Bengals pre- and postgame shows for the Bengals Radio Network.
Piecoro was one of the orignals on the Score, which was WBOB before it was BOB.
He forged his UK connection by playing football there in the early 1980s. He replaces Jeff Van Note.
MARTY AND DAN: How rare is it for Marty Brennaman to work Reds games with Joe Nuxhall? Brennaman remembers only five games Nuxhall missed before this weekend. That's five of 4,403.
Nuxhall skipped the Montreal series to attend a ceremony honoring his son, Kim, as Fairfield School District teacher of the year.
Dan Hoard, the voice of UC football and basketball, filled in. It was Hoard's third replacement stint of the year. He filled in during two games for ill New York Mets broadcasters.
Hopefully, someone will hear Hoard and give him a chance to do big league baseball on a full-time basis. He deserves a shot.
UNRESTRICTED: Thanks partly to Tim Pennington, you'll be able to see highlights of this week's Kroger Senior Classic on local newscasts.
The Senior PGA Tour lifted the embargo that kept stations from showing highlights until CNBC's coverage was off the air. This kept stations from showing highlights on 6 p.m. newscasts. Pennington, the director of communications for the Kroger, lobbied for the rule change.
“We are thrilled,” Pennington said. “We've been screaming and yelling about this for months.”
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Why FSN missed Reds' rally
