I have decided that, at least for a while, I am not going to criticize local soccer telecasts in any way, shape or form.
This decision comes after watching the Comcast SportsNet coverage of last week's game between the San Jose Earthquakes and Real Salt Lake — perhaps the most abominably produced, incompetently announced sporting event I've ever witnessed.
It was the ultimate minor-league effort for what's supposed to be Major League Soccer.
The folks at Ch. 2 and RSL would have to put a whole lot of time and effort into planning a telecast that bad.
Apparently, nobody involved in the CSN telecast had ever watched a soccer game on TV before. Somebody forgot to tell them that there are no timeouts in soccer. That the action doesn't stop.
Thus, it's incredibly idiotic to cut away from the action on the field to show us video of the San Jose coach sitting on the sidelines being interviewed. Gee, if you're going to do that, we don't actually have to SEE him in order to HEAR him. Or, for that matter, if you feel obligated to show us his face, do it as an insert in the corner of the screen.
Same goes for the interview with the injured player.
Unfortunately, it's not unusual for American TV to cut away from live action to show us highlights. Sometimes it's handled well; other times less so.
But these dopes actually cut away from Saturday night's game to show us two goals the Earthquakes scored against Real — LAST YEAR.
I am NOT making this up. I'm not clever enough to fictionalize something like that. That's sort of Ripley's Believe It Or Not crazy. But, unfortunately, we had to believe it.
And then there were the announcers — play-by-play man John Shrader and (alleged) analyst Troy Dayak.
I understand that I was watching the Earthquakes' TV home team in action. I get it. They're working for San Jose fans, and that's who they were trying to keep happy.
But Shrader and Dayak's level of homer-ism was so out of control it was ridiculous. It's only a slight exaggeration to say that, listening to them, RSL committed foul after foul while San Jose was blameless. And every call against the visitors was good, while every call against the home team was bad.
And, by the way, I came to these conclusions in the first half of Saturday's game, when the game was scoreless. Although it's also true that, if I were an Earthquakes fan, I wouldn't have been as jarred by Shrader and Dayak.
Except for one moment when, giving Shrader as much benefit of the doubt as possible, he was mistaken. And Dayak said perhaps the single dumbest thing I've ever heard come out of the mouth of any announcer at any kind of game.
In the first half, a shot on the San Jose keeper hit the hand of a San Jose defender. As the video replay clearly showed, the ball was directed down by the defender's hand, and then he cleared the ball.
Despite the clear video, Shrader told viewers the ball "may have gone off hand" of the defender, but went on to say the ref "was right there" — as if that somehow made a difference.
But that dumbness could be overlooked after Dayak looked at the video replay and said, "You know what? Hits off his hand. But right now, Real Salt Lake is not playing good enough to earn a (penalty kick) during this game."
That's incredibly stupid. That's like an NFL announcer looking at a clear video replay of, say, the Broncos scoring a touchdown that the refs failed to recognize — and saying that Denver wasn't playing well enough to deserve a touchdown.
There's room to argue just about any call, but to argue that a call shouldn't be made because a team isn't playing well is just, well, incredibly stupid.
Compared to this Comcast telecast, RSL and KUTV do an impeccable job with Real games. I'll leave them alone.
For at least a couple of weeks.
e-mail: pierce@desnews.com