JAPAN WINS – AT 5:45 P.M. ET:  Japan has won the women's world soccer cup, in a photo-finish victory against the U.S. on penalty kicks.  The match was held in Germany.  Hmm, Japan beating the U.S. in Germany?  Kind of gives me the creeps. 

I'm not a soccer fan and rarely watch.  I watched this time because of all the hoopla over the world cup.  If the U.S. had won, it would have been the only women's team ever to win the world cup three times.  But it was not to be.

Both teams are to be praised for hard playing and good sportsmanship.  What is not to be praised is the appalling quality of the sportscasting.  The sportscasters were knowledgeable enough, and gave a good play-by-play.  But the basics of sports journalism were simply ignored.  Americans are not huge soccer fans, except perhaps at the school level, and most don't know the rules of the game.  I want those rules explained to me.  I want to know what referee calls mean.  I want to know how the penalty-kick system works.  And, most of all, I'd appreciate ESPN getting a good on-screen game clock that actually tells me something, not simply one that gives a minutes-elapsed reading.  How many minutes remain?  Exactly.  One sportscaster, incredibly, was actually reduced to saying "About seven and a half minutes to go."  About?  ABOUT?  In a world championship match?

I grew up on Red Barber and Mel Allen.  We're skating fans and we were "taught" by Dick Button and Peggy Fleming.  Okay, I'm a bit spoiled.

But, as in news journalism, basics count.  ESPN has work to do. 

July 17, 2011