Idiots Write About Sports

While we’re on the subject of Fox and its apparent plans to become an NESN or YES affiliate with its national broadcasts, get ready for some exciting new Fox Sports innovations to make their debut tonight.

Get ready for Scooter.

Scooter, SI.com’s John Donavon reports, is a talking baseball (voiced by Tom Kenney of Spongebob Squarepants and Mr. Show fame). Scooter will pop up periodically during tonight’s game to explain the differences between different types of pitches. Scooter, according to the Tampa Tribune, was created by Fox at the behest of Commissioner Bud Selig’s office as a way to appeal to younger viewers.

Scooter will likely have me kicking in my television set by the third inning.

On the bright side, interviewing managers in the dugout while the game continues on the field is no longer the stupidest innovation to be introduced to baseball telecasts this year.

[Update: I have seen — sort of — Scooter’s much-heralded debut. With much fanfare, Joe Buck cut to the animated baseball in the top of the second to explain the intricacies of Tim Wakefield’s knuckler. Here, on the L.A. Fox affiliate’s feed, Scooter’s voice was inaudible.

So on the downside, this “innovation” looks as idiotic as I feared it would. On the bright side, I already like Scooter better than McCarver.]