Neal Zoren's Broadcast Media
Post-season baseball begins Tuesday, for eight of the 12 teams that made it to the 2024 Major League Baseball playoffs.
Phillies fans wait for Saturday for the action to start. That's because the Phillies finished with the second-best record in the National League and earned a bye for the Wild Card round.
They will compete in the NL Divisional series beginning Saturday and, I hope, in the subsequent NL Championship series and the World Series.
Neither the time nor opponent of Saturday's game is known. We know the venue is Citizens Bank Park because the Phillies glommed home field advantage against all comers but the Los Angeles Dodgers, the only team with a better record.
We also know the television stations that will carry the NLDS and any further rounds in which the Phillies might play.
For the National League, that station will be either Fox (Channel 29) or FS1. The World Series will also be on Fox.
Here's a breakdown of the entire playoff season as regards television.
Tomorrow's games, the first in a best-of-three Wild Card series, will be seen on either ABC (Channel 6) or ESPN. Those stations will carry all games in this round whether they involve the American or National League. Most will be on ESPN platforms.
Final team records were not yet decided Sunday afternoon and neither were all of the teams that are making it.
The NL's third seed, the Milwaukee Brewers, definitely play Tuesday, but they don't yet know their opponent. Nor does the fourth seed, the San Diego Padres.
Wild card games continue Wednesday through Friday.
The Phillies begin a best-of-five series Saturday with whichever team wins the series between the Brewers and the Mets, Braves or Diamondbacks.
Again, the time of the game in TBD, but Fox or FS1 is where it can be seen.
Fox announcers will come from the usual suspects, Joe David and John Smoltz composing the network's "A" team.
Meanwhile, American League Divisional games, featuring some combination of the New York Yankees, Cleveland Guardians, Houston Astros, Baltimore Orioles, Detroit Tigers and Kansas City Royals — two will be eliminated in the Wild Card round — will be seen on TBS or one of its TNT offshoots, TruTV or Max.
The best-of-seven NL Championship Series begins on Sunday, Oct. 13, again on Fox or FS1. The ALCS will remain on TBS.
The World Series, also best-of-seven, begins on Friday, Oct. 25.
No matter who carries or announces Phillies games during the playoffs, the team's regular radio crew — Scott Franzke, Larry Anderson, and Kevin Stocker, perhaps augmented by Tom McCarthy and members of the TV team — will be heard on WIP (94.1 FM) throughout their time in the postseason.
As usual, I recommend muting the Fox commentary and listening to Franzke and company for play-by-play and analysis.
Vice presidential debate
CBS is the network producing the lone debate between 2024 candidates for vice president of the United States, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for the Democrats and Ohio Senator JD Vance for the Republicans.
The hope is the debate, a 90-minute affair set for 9 p.m. Tuesday and visible on most television news platforms, will give American viewers a better look as Messrs. Walz and Vance.
More important to me is whether CBS moderators Norah O'Donnell and Margaret Brennan do a better job running the debate than ABC's obviously biased David Muir and Linsey David or CNN's slightly better Jake Tapper and Dana Bash.
As readers might remember, I chose CBS (Channel 3) to watch both the CNN and ABC debates because O'Donnell and her crew are likely to be somewhat fairer than Muir, Lester Holt and Savannah Guthrie on NBC, and anyone from a cable or streaming station.
I make it a point to preserve my blood pressure by never listening to commentary, so I won't be tuning into CBS or any of its colleagues for their 8 p.m. previews or 10:30 p.m. analyses.
They are available for those who wish to partake.
As in the past debates, I will be looking for something specific from each of the candidates.
From Walz, I will be searching once more for substance, a deep dive into policy explanation as opposed to mere policy intention. I will listening for him to defend some decisions he made regarding not calling the National Guard following the George Floyd demonstrations, about asylum for children who want to change gender, and about timelines within a pregnancy that might set the latest time a woman can have an abortion.
I don't expect O'Donnell or Brennan to probe these matters, so it might be up to Vance to do so.
From Vance, I am looking for discipline of mind.
Donald Trump is Donald Trump. Any expectation of verbal self-control would only be frustrating. Vance is also known for bold statements. I will be looking for context should he make any Tuesday.
It continued to amaze me that Vance is ridiculed for something he said three years ago, but Kamala Harris is never made to say why her views on so many subjects have changed in that same three-to-five years.
Speaking of interviews, I watched Brian Taff's brief one-on-one with Harris and was impressed at how Taff asked specific questions that didn't invite the open-ended responses Harris gave, repeating again chestnuts from her stump rhetoric rather than answering.
Harris was also interviewed by Stephanie Ruhle bn MSNBC with the same results.
To give an idea of press attitude towards the vice president, it was interesting when Ruhle, questioned by colleague Chris Hayes about Harris' not giving "clear, direct answers," said, "That's OK, because we are not dealing with clear, direct issues."
Huh?
Clever and not
Twirling through stations looking for a keeper, I stumbled on an ancient episode of "Whose Line Is It Anyway," an improvisational show that features some of TV's sharpest minds.
I stayed on the Channel 3 secondary station carrying the show to watch Wayne Brady fulfill an assignment to sing a song entitled, "Milking with Cold Hands" in the style of pop singer Adele.
Allegedly, Brady composed his song on the spot. Whether it was totally extemporaneous or he had some prep time, Brady's number was smart and hilarious, demonstrating a level of comedy that seems to have escaped this part of the 21st century.
HIs four-minute was infinitely better, n to the millionth power, than the best quip I ever heard on this dreadful show CBS airs at 12:30 a.m. weeknights, "After Midnight," on which host Taylor Tomlinson sets up situations or shows videos that are supposed to prompt funny responses from a competing panel of current comics.
Lame and lamer describes anything I ever heard on Tomlinson's show.
Tribute to Maggie
"Unique" is a word that speaks for itself. It means one-of-a-kind, ineluctable, and without peer.
Maggie Smith was unique.
Sure, she's imitated routinely.
The late Christopher Durang, in his Tony-winning play, "Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike," devotes entire scenes to a character who decides to spent a costume party and the day following it speaking in the imitable but unmatchable cadence of Dame Maggie.
For me, Smith makes her first indelible impression as Richard Burton's loyal and harried assistant in "The VIPs" (1963). She did not receive an Oscar nomination for the performance — her co-star, Margaret Rutherford, was given the award. — but she warranted one.
Perhaps, if three supporting actresses from "Tom Jones" weren't nominated that year, she would have been.
Smith would get her first of six Oscar nods in 1965 for playing Desdemona opposite Laurence Olivier in "Othello."
She would receive her first Oscar for 1969's "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie" and her second as the actress coming to Hollywood as a nominee in 1978's "California Suite."
Other nominations would be for "Travels with My Aunt" (1972), "Room with a View" (1986) and "Gosford Park" (2001).
Believe me, there could have been another half-dozen more.
What made Maggie Smith special was her way of delivering a line.
Shrewd wit and impeccable timing was evident in every word the woman spoke on a stage or on the screen, whether in movies or television.
Her performance as the dowager duchess, Violet Crawley, in television's "Downton Abbey" is an ongoing master class in how to speak poignantly and memorably while assaying a dramatic role.
Look some day at the YouTube and other reels of Smith dashing off some of Violet's most trenchant, withering lines.
Smith, who died last week at age 89, was among the few actresses flawlessly proficient in drama and comedy.
She may be remembered primarily as a comedian, but "The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie," "Othello," and even "California Suite," written by Neil Simon is a testament to her ability to summon genuine depth and pathos.
The first time I saw Smith live was in Noël Coward's "Private Lives" at the 46th Street Theatre — now the Richard Rodgers — in February 1975. She was incandescent as the deliciously independent and wonderfully amoral Amanda Prynne.
The next time I saw her was in 1976, at Canada's marvelous Stratford Festival, where she played roles in William Congreve's "The Way of the World" and the female lead in Shakespeare's "Antony and Cleopatra."
The Congreve is automatic casting for one with the comic IQ of Maggie Smith.
The Cleopatra was unexpected, partially because Smith found humor along with tragedy in the Egyptian queen's story.
I remember laughing almost uncontrollably when she told was told Marc Antony's wife, Fulvia, has passed, and she turned to the messenger and said, "Can Fulvia ... (pause) ... die?," gesturing as if to say, "Can it be that easy. Antony and I don't have to worry about how he disposes of his wife, she just conveniently dies?"
It was one of those serious moments Smith tinged with comedy while not obliterating the dramatic significance of the scene.
She did that over and over.
The one time I met Maggie Smith, literally in passing, as I saw her on St. Martin's Lane in London's theater district, and said, "Hello Maggie Smith. I adored you in Cleopatra in Canada."
She stopped, gave me a quizzical look and said, "Did you really? Lord love you," before she walked on.
Among regrets is never getting the chance to do a formal interview with Smith and missing her in London when she played Lady Bracknell in Oscar Wilde's "The Importance of Being Earnest."
Regrets, humbug!
I saw Smith three times in her brilliant turn as the exaggerating tour guide in "Lettice and Lovage." She earned her 1990 Tony for that performance.
I saw her in great classic and contemporary works, including opposite Judi Dench in David Hare's two-hander, "The Breath of Life," in 2002.
Then, there's the many movies and all of those episodes of "Downton Abbey" to savor.
Maggie Smith was an original. She is also an artist who should be seen and revered through the ages, as movie and television allow.
I already miss the performances that might have come.
