BOB GARFIELD: Listening to an ad on a classical music radio station sounds like this. [MUSIC] MALE ANNOUNCER: It's called the Lexus golden opportunity. You have until September fourth to get the one that didn't get away.

BOB GARFIELD: Listening to an ad on an all-news radio sounds like this. [MUSIC] FEMALE ANNOUNCER: Well, you'll feel even worse tomorrow morning if you miss Sleepy's One-Day Sale!

BOB GARFIELD: Listening to an ad on a baseball game sounds like this. [PHONE RINGS]

MAN: Hello?

MAN: Pokey, where are you? We're almost done with warm-ups. You're going to miss B.P.!

MAN: This is better than batting practice, Coach. I'm downloading the opposing pitcher's stats.

MAN: You mean, you don't have Adelphia's PowerLink?

BOB GARFIELD: Where is it inscribed that baseball game advertising copy must invoke baseball themes and imagery? Hank Greenwald, retired voice of the San Francisco Giants, spent years reading the worst writing on God's green outfield.

HANK GREENWALD: Here are the stolen base leaders in the National League, and this feature is brought to you by some burglar alarm company. Don't let anyone steal your prize possessions, you know, or you'll hit a home run every time when you bank with such-and-such. They're corny [LAUGHS], and a [LAUGHING] a lot of times you kind of cringe when you hear them.

BOB GARFIELD: Grand slam this, strike out that. Hockey game ads don't talk about slap shots and cross checks. Traffic report advertising doesn't trot out bumper-to-bumper gags. So how in the world do you explain this? [AMBIENT SOUND – BASEBALL GAME]

ANNOUNCER: Swing and a long drive! Watch that – [OVERTALK]

ANNOUNCER: I've seen plenty of big hits in my day. [AUDIENCE CHEERING] No hit, though, could match the one Sue Tierney of Philadelphia made during her family reunion. Sue excited that crowd of aunts, uncles and second cousins with a grand slam meal of hotdogs and hamburgers served on delicious Strohman Rolls. So make a big hit of your own with Strohman hotdog and hamburger rolls.

BOB GARFIELD: The voice belongs to Philadelphia Phillies play-by-play man Harry Kalas, one of the most admired broadcasters in baseball, which is one of the reasons the situation is so pathetic. Philadelphia Enquirer sportswriter Frank Fitzpatrick not only cringes, but feels a deep and abiding sadness to hear so distinguished an announcer reduced to mouthing such insipid and misinformed blather.

HARRY KALAS: There's one of these ads that's like fingernails on a blackboard to me. It's another Strohman's ad. And Harry says, I've seen many great Phillies teams over the years, and I'm thinking, no, you haven't. [LAUGHS] I mean, they've only had five pennant winners in, you know, in 117 years.

BOB GARFIELD: He's right, of course. The Phillies are, by far, the losingest franchise in the history of professional sports. But Frank veers off the point, which is that what the hell do great Phillies teams have to do with hotdog buns?

HARRY KALAS: I think most of the imagery is just so clichéd that they feel like no matter what bad pun or play on words they make, people are going to - [OVERTALK]

BOB GARFIELD: And – forget it, Frank, I'll tell you what it has to do with hotdog buns. It doesn't have anything to do with hotdog buns. At long last, what kind of sensibility is behind this reflexive reference in the advertising to the programming that surrounds it? Pitching stats and cable modems? Who writes this stuff?

MICHAEL KNIGHT: Well, obviously, knowing that this was going to be broadcast during the Dodger games, you want that type of a tie-in.

BOB GARFIELD: Michael Knight is marketing manager for the Adelphia Cable System's PowerLink high-speed Internet service. He doesn't use an ad agency. He himself authored the pitcher spot that Adelphia runs on Dodgers games.

MICHAEL KNIGHT: Major sports, say, a football and a basketball, which probably wouldn't have come as easy to me to create an ad that would flow. Baseball just has that natural flow to it.

BOB GARFIELD: There's your answer. Baseball ads sound the way they do because the likes of Oscar Wilde aren't writing them, nor are the likes of David Ogilvy writing them. Marketing managers of high-speed Internet services are writing them. Local radio ads on baseball or anywhere else are the bottom of the advertising food chain, and the author's imagination is usually insufficient to think outside the white chalk lines. But the thing is, you don't have to be peddling cable service or doughy picnic items to sound pitiful in your attempt to hit one out of the park with the consumer. You can be selling the future of New York City. [AMBIENT SOUND/BASEBALL GAME]

MAN: Hey, when a shortstop drops the ball on a sure double play, he tells you, my error. There's no finger-pointing. So how come on a big thing like poor math and reading scores, no one in the school system's ever said, hey, it's my fault? [SCHOOL BELL RINGS] Well, elect Mike Bloomberg mayor. Give him the assignment. He'll be accountable. [BASEBALL GAME HUBBUB] Mike Bloomberg. [BAT HITS BALL/CROWD CHEERS] Mike Bloomberg. He'll deliver.

ANNOUNCER: Paid for by Bloomberg for mayor. [MUSIC UP AND UNDER]

BOB GARFIELD: That's it for this week's show. On the Media was produced by Megan Ryan, Tony Field, Jamie York and Mike Vuolo and edited – by Brooke. Dylan Keefe is our technical director and Jennifer Munson our engineer. We had help from George Edwards, Claire Peters and Noah Kumin. Our webmaster is Amy Pearl.

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Katya Rogers is our senior producer and John Keefe our executive producer. Bassist/composer Ben Allison wrote our theme. This is On the Media from WNYC. I'm Brooke Gladstone.

BOB GARFIELD: And I'm Bob Garfield.