Even the most agile minds have trouble with time differences. Ifyou have to call halfway around the world, first you take a timeoutand huddle with yourself on the sidelines, trying to figure out ifthe people you're trying to reach are just waking up, at work, in bedor a year older by now. Let's see, they're 11 hours ahead of us-nowait, they're 11 hours BEHIND us, so it's last night there right now.. .
In the Midwest, we have to deal with coast-centric snobs in NewYork and Los Angeles who don't even bother doing the math when theyleave messages. When people from New York or Los Angeles say, 'It'sabout 4:30,' rest assured they mean it's 4:30 their time, not yourtime.
The 20,000-plus journalists who are covering the Summer Olympicsin Sydney right now-well, not right now, more like 15 hours from now-keep trying to tell us that the mind-boggling time difference doesn'tmatter. They're filing breathless dispatches filled with details ofrich pageantry, high drama, soaring spirit and tremendousathleticism, and they're telling us we should care about it, eventhough we'll see none of it on live TV.
Of course the time difference doesn't matter to them because theydon't have to deal with it. They get to see things live, in person or(more likely) on TV monitors in a press tent on the scene. But Iwonder: if you told these Sydney correspondents the results of lastSunday's NFL and major league baseball games and then offered themthe opportunity to watch tapes of said games, how many would beinterested?
NBC executives and others with a vested interest in the commercialviability of the Olympics point out that even when the Games areplayed close to home, the majority of events are seen on tape delay.Our Olympic moments come pre-packaged.
Remember Kerri Strug, the 80-pound piston-pixie who nailed a vaultin the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta despite having torn ligaments and aseverely sprained ankle? Strug's heroics ostensibly clinched the goldmedal for the U.S. women's gymnastics team and were given the fullTeshian overkill treatment by NBC on a hot July night.
The network presented the event as if Strug had to score at leasta 9.6 on her last vault in order for the Americans to hold off theRussian team; you could even hear coach Bela Karolyi telling herthat.
In reality, the Russians hadn't even completed their competitionwhen Strug was finishing, and Karolyi was just guessing about thescore she'd need.
As it turned out, Strug could have fallen on her behind and theAmericans still would have won. The network knew that when it ran thetape, but where's the drama in revealing that kind of truth?
There's no indication yet that any events in the 2000 Olympicshave been so blatantly manipulated-but obviously if a network hasadvance knowledge of how a competition is going to turn out, it canedit and package accordingly. They're not going to show you someheartbreaking mini-documentary about a pole-vaulter who has endured adozen tragedies on the road to the Olympics if the guy finishes 27thin the biggest event of his life.
I'm sure I'll tune in for some of the marquee events as the Gamesmarch on, but I didn't watch one second of Olympic coverage over theweekend.
However, I did witness a sporting event filled with excitement,drama and pageantry-the Sox-Blue Jays game Saturday night. Torontohurler Chris Carpenter pitched a magnificent game, until he wasstruck in the face by a 105-mph line drive off the bat of JoseValentin and had to be taken from the field on a stretcher. Afterthat heart-stopping moment, the Sox continued with one of theirpatented rallies, scoring five runs in the 8th to overtake the Jaysand reduce their magic number to single digits. On top of all that,there was the post-game fireworks show.
The last time the Sox were in the postseason, Michael Jordan wason the verge of his first retirement; in other words, it's been awhile. They're about to do it again, in Central Standard Time, andthat makes the Olympics about as relevant to me as another 'CrocodileDundee' movie.
Richard Roeper (rroeper@suntimes.com) appears Tuesdays at 7:50a.m. and Wednesdays at 7:30 a.m. on WFLD-Channel 32's 'Fox Thing inthe Morning.'
