Without Derek Jeter or his parents to show between pitches, Fox has turned to a new egregious target: Fans with their hands on their faces! Obviously they've been showing the dramatic fan-shots for years now (does anyone want to see this?), but in the Tigers-Rangers series, I've noticed their criteria seems to be "put hands on or near face, get on TV." It's reached the point where it's either an inside joke among the producers, or Fox is just planting these people for effect.

Last night in the ninth inning, Kim and I turned on the game, and I told her to watch for it. Sure enough, the next EIGHT people they showed--in the span of about a minute--had their hands to the faces. A minute later I jokingly said, "uh, hel-lo, we haven't seen a hand-facer in a while...," but before I could say "while," they cut to another hand-facer.

So while what really stinks is just how often they show fan close-ups, often risking missing pitches (they almost missed the last out of the game last night!), at least as fans (who don't care about the outcome) we get to watch for and track the hand-facers. It really is amazing. I'm not sure if TBS plays by the same rules for the NLCS, but definitely watch for it in the next ALCS game.

Still looking for people for the WS contest--scroll down. Thanks.