.
Actually, the headline is really just a grabber. I doubt that The Ticket intended any disrespect for the Byron Nelson Classic or its founder.
But for awhile there I wondered.
The 3:30 Ticker on Thursday, May 26, featured a live report from the Nelson. I missed the Tickerman -- Krenek, maybe? I didn't think it was Casey Millen, but it could have been. It was delivered in an extremely slow, sing-song voice. I was waiting for Ty's reaction, and he seemed rather puzzled. I wondered if it was a Tickerman self-immolating on the air.
As the weekend progressed and I heard other live reports, however, other live reporters had some fun with it, as did the Tickermen in the studio, who would throw in a gag or two. The live reporters would sometimes deliver the report in in exaggeratedly whispery voice, as though they were reporting standing next to someone lining up a putt.
I never did figure out the sing-song guy, but then The Hardline reminded us that some years ago the station ran into trouble at the Nelson. I didn't catch the whole story, but I gather there was a remote from the tourney, and Mike R made some kind of joke that apparently did not go over well with the sponsors and managers of the event.
So I wondered whether there were some Ticket history with the Nelson that inspired these parodic live reports. Can anyone enlighten?
I was the on site reporter Saturday. I wasn't trying to use an exaggerated voice.
ReplyDeleteWe were set up in the media center, and it's just generally a fairly quiet environment and also you're surrounded by a lot of people.
I believe it was Millen that did the sing-song bit on Thursday or Friday, and that may have put an end to the golf ticker fun for the remainder of the tournament.
ReplyDeleteI made a special effort to listen to the tickers over the last few days -- Krenek toed the line during the first shift, and Millen went slightly over during the next shift and I believe that wound up eliciting an email from management that was later referenced during Cirque du Sirois. The rest of the ticker guys after that moment (Ty, KT, Casey and Matt McClearin) did mostly straight stuff throughout the weekend.
Sidenote -- KT, I had you confused with Joe Lecci, you were so quiet!
Apologies to Krenek. I was driving at the time and more interested in what Ty would say than who was reporting. I should have known it was that perpetually-up-and-coming scamp Millen.
ReplyDeleteMost of the live reports from the Nelson were conventional. They were more sotto-voce than I recall from earlier years, but, as AP reports, mostly played straight. I heard at least one, however, that was obviously delivered in a theatrical whisper, to which the in-studio Tickerman made reference when it got tossed back to him. And, as noted, the in-studio Tickermen themselves joked about the live reports in throwing it to the colleague on-site.
No criticism intended. It seemed like Tickety fun to me, although I didn't get the inside joke, if there was one, on the sing-songy one.
And I got the impression that perhaps the light-heartedness of the Nelson Tickers was an acknowledgment that those live reports may not have been entirely necessary when there were probably other ways the studio could have gotten exactly the same information.
But the whole thing made me wonder if there is -- or remains -- an adversarial relationship between the rising Ticket and the declining Nelson.
One more thing: Nice move to have a special edition of the Teebox after the tournament.
ReplyDeleteYet another tip of the hat to the Cumulo-Ticket Overlords for devoting resources to original weekend programming.
Wasnt there an incident involving The Nelson?
ReplyDeleteSomething involving the measurement of women's breasts.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day (before I became a P1), the Hardline held an impromptu contest at the Nelson where they measured the sizes of women's breasts with a tape measure.
ReplyDeleteI believe the backlash from this prevents the Ticket from broadcasting from the actual event, and could explain why ticker guys have to tread very lightly while they are there (i.e. delivering the tickers in hushed tones).