It’s bad enough that people still resort to talking about the Cuyahoga River catching fire whenever they want to talk about Cleveland. But if you’re going to go there, the least you could do is get the facts right, especially if you’re going to use imagery.
Last night, the TBS postgame coverage of the Indians win over the Red Sox included the graphic above. Yes, the network took the easy path and dug up the old trope. Fire! Cleveland!
Except that’s not Cleveland nor the Cuyahoga River. That’s a river in Moscow and a 2015 oil fire (that injured three people, including a child). Because apparently there aren’t ample photos of the actual Cuyahoga River fire available on the internet and, we’re guessing, TBS just didn’t think they were dynamic and fire-y enough to properly depict Cleveland.
It wasn’t the only faux pas in the aftermath of the 5-4 win, incidentally. The postgame coverage also included Pedro Martinez whipping out a racist Native American stereotype, which he quickly apologized for on Twitter.
This article appears in Oct 5-11, 2016.
It’s caught fire twice before
http://clevelandhistorical.org/items/show/63#.V_z3D4b3aEc
Speaking of faux pas, the final score was 4-3.
LOL I knew the SJWs of Twitter would make Pedro apologize. He did nothing racist.
Who the hell ever watches TBS when they don’t carry national sporting events? TBS is a has-been, piece- of-shit , run-of-the-mill cable network whose glory days are in the far-distant past. They were actually better when Ted and Jane ran the circus and they still carried the Atlanta Braves, whom they called “America’s Team”…when everyone knew America watched the Cubs on WGN. The Cubs routinely clobbered them in the ratings for decades.
If the Cubs don’t choke this week, and advance, TBS will cleverly run images of Mrs. O’ Leary’s cow and a burning Chicago…or maybe gangsters mowing people down. But now that the Tribe and Jays have swept, TBS is done covering baseball for a while.
Listen to the play-by-play guys on ALL the sports networks. They were biased in favor of Boston and now they are creaming themselves over the Giants. The truth is, television hates the Midwest and Midwestern teams. They want the games to be in affluent yuppie towns like SF and Boston, because that’s where the affluent eyeballs are. They despise places like Cleveland… and even Chicago. So a burning river image is neither new nor surprising. They’re all bi-coastal assholes at the networks.
National play-by-play coverage has mocked and denigrated ALL Cleveland pro teams for decades. And it’s not just the Browns…or even about losing and winning. They snarked at the Cavs last summer, and they will do it to the Tribe this fall.
Don’t believe it? Tune in, if you have the stomach for it, and a vomit bag by your side.
Chuckles the Clown
Papi was the story to get them ratings. They don’t believe Cleveland will get the audience to generate revenue. Whether it’s true, doesn’t matter. They wanted the “Big Papi”.