When i was a program director, I had a reputation for being tough on sales people.  It wasn't that I didn't appreciate them or respect what they did (although they seemed to think so), I just insisted that anything we put on the air had to be win-win.  In other words, I felt like anything we put on had to work for both the client and the listener.  Yes, I know, what was I thinking, but I'm old school that way.

I was reminded of this last night while watching the Orioles-Tigers game on MASN last night.  There was a "covering the bases" feature, sponsored by Home Depot, which featured an inside look at a player.  Like back to his childhood. 

This would have been a fine pre-game or internet feature, but running snippets of Brad Bergesen talking about his youth during the game seemed silly.  The capper is when Gary Thorne and Buck Martinez, two talented and entertaining announcers all by themselves conducted a phone interview of Mama Bergesen DURING THE GAME.  If ever there was a moment that I gave thanks for a mute button, this was it.

How does someone not realize that NOBODY CARES about the announcers talking to some PLAYER'S MAMA on the phone DURING THE GAME.  It's distracting enough to me when Brooks Boyer or some White Sox charity shill is in the Sox TV booth plugging some event coming up, but this was as over the top as I've ever experienced.

Don't get me wrong.  I understand the value of sponsorships and naming rights.  If it's only a mention like "the Fifth Third Bank Fifth Inning" or the "Southwest Airlines Picks to Click" or the "So and So Scoreboard."  That's fine.  That kind of sponsorship goes back to Dizzy Dean.  But to spread out something that normally would be a feature over an entire game and disrupting the actual play by play of the game for a phone conversation with a players mother---PLEASE.

My sadness with this whole debacle is not that someone put it on the air, it's that no one tried to stop it.