Dumb things happen in sports every day. Most of this stupidity is perpetrated by the television networks. During the wildcard game, ESPN interviewed Joe Girardi in the fifth inning – while the game was going on. Boy, is that a silly idea.

At least the NFL and the NBA wait until halftime or between periods to ask totally meaningless questions at a totally inappropriate time, but baseball does it while pitches are being thrown and batters are taking swings. The networks think this practice is so real time, that it puts the viewers in the game. It isn’t and it doesn’t. The networks think that fans want minute-by-minute comments and player/coach reactions as they happen. We don’t … We want them to stop interrupting the game and stay the hell out of the way.

The reason why this is such a worthless part of almost every televised sporting event (the networks are addicted to it the way a fat girl is hooked on pork rinds) is that they can’t possibly ask Joe Girardi any question that is relevant to what’s happening in the game … Because he won’t tell them! They can’t ask him, “Tell us about the double switch you have planned for the eighth inning?” Or, “Under what circumstances will you pinch hit for your light-hitting first baseman?” So they throw him a softball, the equivalent of, Hey Joe, what’s your favorite color? The actual question was something like, “Isn’t your shortstop great, tell us the reasons you think he’s great.” What a waste of time and energy. All of these in-game close encounters turn into a non-question, cliche shit show: “Tell us about that touchdown play,” “Take us through that at-bat,” “What was going through your mind when …” “Talk about what Smith means to this team.” It’s embarrassing and gets in the way of perfectly good commercials.

So if you know that you can’t ask the combatants anything pertaining to strategy, if you know that coaches and players won’t reveal anything that might tip their hand about how they will play the game in the moment, then why does the interview have to happen during the game? It doesn’t! So just stop it. Let the head coach walk off the field without the camera crew escort; let him get to the locker room and smoke a cigarette and berate the punter the way nature intended. Leave the managers alone, let them adjust their cups and spit all over themselves in peace.

These tough, between-pitch questions are stressing me out. They’re too deep and probing … Hey coach, thanks for taking the time. Here we are, two outs in the top of the ninth inning in a scoreless ballgame, and we thought this would be a good time to ask, well, we were wondering, and we know the fans are too, do you have a pet?