Pauly's Propaganda

The Yankee TV crew was in rare form this week as the Sox came to town. And becasue it is a special occasion, Paulie O’Neil was flown in from Ohio to offer his two jaded and worthless cents. O’Neil was a nice ball player but he is nothing short of a pinstripe propagandist in the booth. He is a modern day Joe Goebbles, who in case you forgot, was the spokesman for the twentieth century’s other evil empire. O’Neil just cannot help himself from praising his old Yankee mates and apologizing for any and all of their mistakes. When Mariano Rivera blew a save yesterday, O’Neil nearly choked as he was coughing up excuses for the gimp. Paulie basically calls a game much like a thirteen year adoring kid would call a game. His comments are so laden with adulation that you might think the comments were coming from an autograph seeker and not a former player. Case in point - just now - Tino hits a deep fly to left and Pauly screams "GET OUT OF HERE!" Is that professional? Maybe in Latin America and dogpatch USA it is, but that isn't quite up Sculley-esque. Not only that, but Paulina cannot compliment a single player in baseball without parsing it with some sort of deference for a Yankee. Case in point, Paulie could never talk up Miguel Tejada too aggressively since that could be construed to mean there is a MLB shortstop that may be better than Mr. Jeter. It is bad enough that we have to stomach Mike Kay’s thinly veiled nonsense for 130-140 games a year, but O’Neil is just too much for my stomach lining to absorb. I guess if could be worse though. If Steinbrenner really wanted to kill me he would bring that other right-fielder into the booth. You know the guy – he wore number forty four.