One of the more intriguing stories that took place early in the Tigers' 13-8 win over the White Sox on Sunday was a second-inning dugout spat between Armando Galarraga and Alex Avila. Unfortunately, if you were watching the game on Fox Sports Detroit, you may have had no idea the dispute took place.
FSD didn't show any footage of the argument during Sunday's telecast, and though announcers Mario Impemba and Rod Allen knew of it, they made no mention of it during their commentary. Executive producer John Tuohey told the Detroit News' Tony Paul that they made a mistake in judgment.
"Even if there's a circumstance where you're unsure of what an argument or a potential confrontation is about, we can still deal with it," Tuohey said. "It's out there. There's no desire to hide it or make people think it didn't exist. We just, quite frankly, in the moment weren't quite sure what to say about it."
Personally, I read about the incident on Twitter. And if you were watching the White Sox's feed of the game on Comcast Sports Net, you saw footage of Galarraga and Avila going at it. But it sounds like many fans didn't know this took place until after the game, when it was shown in highlights packages.
Tuohey clarified, however, that the Tigers had nothing to do with the decision not to show anything of the confrontation. As he explains it, the FSD crew had to make a quick decision (especially because the incident occurred between innings), but then had to get back to the business of broadcasting the game at hand.
"I need (the crew) to be reactive," Tuohey said. "It's the, 'Hey look, we've got this, what should we do with it,' 'What do we think,' 'Oh, I'm not sure,' 'Oh, we're back on the air.'
"And they just kind of put it off to the side for a while."
But Tuohey also admitted that some of their hesitation may have been due to not knowing what the argument was about. Even without that information, however, he acknowledges that they still could've shown viewers the pertinent footage.
FSD intends to address the incident and cover it properly during Monday evening's Tigers Live pre-game show.