Another celeb bombs in the booth

Sarah Silverman. Photo from Wikimedia Commons, by Damon D'Amato

Apparently Fox TV executives aren’t history buffs. If they were, Saturday evening’s primetime MLB game between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees wouldn’t have featured an on-air, in-booth appearance by B-list comic Sarah Silverman in the bottom of the fourth inning.

ESPN’s Monday Night Football provided a season-long example in 2006 of why inviting celebrities to sit in with announcers during a portion of a sporting event just doesn’t work. Not only are the celebrities typically brought on to promote a new project, but they typically offer no relevant insight regarding the game, and very often the interviews are simply awkward for everyone involved—the announcers, the celebrity, and most importantly the viewers.

Silverman’s appearance with announcers Joe Buck and Tim McCarver was every bit as brutal as any of those ill-fated entertainer appearances on MNF in 2006. McCarver barely uttered a word during Silverman’s half-inning stint in the booth, and Buck did a terrible job of engaging with a dry Silverman, who was censored twice by Fox and quickly cut off by Buck after she attempted to start up a discussion of why pitchers should be allowed to be on LSD, citing former Pittsburgh Pirates’ pitcher Dock Ellis’ claim that he was on LSD when he pitched a no-hitter in 1970.

Then, Brett Gardner did Fox execs (and viewers) a huge favor. The Yankee outfielder took a feeble hack at the first pitch, quickly grounding out to first base for the third out to end the inning and Silverman’s six minutes of awful air time.