More Crazy Baseball Telecast Tidbits

I just finished up watching the Cubs beat up the Cardinals 9-3 this afternoon. YAY! Of course Soriano was worthless again, but that's old news. The rest of the Cubs lineup has been on fire this season - and that's just fine with me.

So, just as I noticed in last night's Red Sox game, FOX was using that same zoomed out camera shot from center field for their broadcast today. I'm wondering - is this some sort of new directive from the MLB offices? The only reason I can see them switching to this new angle is to display more advertisements behind home plate. With this new angle, you can see BOTH of the rolling ads that are displayed behind the batter - instead of just one.

I'm not too sure if I like this new angle. One cool bit, though, is that you can see the break of the pitches much better. Other than that, I'm not convinced I like this new angle. We'll see if its permanent.

The other bit that I noticed was that in the 6th inning FOX somehow predicted Mike Fontenot's 3-run home run! Granted, I don't think it was a prediction - but it was a pretty big production error. While Fontenot was batting, the right-hand side of the scoreband across the top displayed "HOMERUN - Cubs" and the score switched from "3 - 0" to "6 - 0".

At first I thought this was just some "hypothetical" thing FOX was trying to relay to its viewers. I thought to myself: "Oh - so FOX is telling me that if the Cubs hit a home run here, the score will be 6 to 0. Well, thanks FOX, but I can do math just fine in my head." But right after that, the HOMERUN text faded back into the current pitch speed and the score flipped back to "3 - 0". And then, something funny happened. On the next pitch, Mike Fontenot ripped a 3-run home run on the next pitch!

So, my questions are:

• Does FOX have the godly power to change the course of a baseball game?
• Are the folks at FOX able to see into the future?
• Is FOX secretly trying to influence baseball games and pulling for the Cubs to win the World Series?

I think my third bullet is the right answer. That's gotta be the answer. They knew Fontenot was going to hit a home run before it happened!

It couldn't possibly be a simple production error due to the fact that the game telecast is on a broadcast delay...