Alfonso Soriano tied Monday night’s Texas-Oakland game with a two-out home run in the ninth inning, and Fox Sports Network Southwest was on the ball with an instant replay.
Minutes later, a Fox camera caught Rangers pitcher Frank Francisco hurling a chair into the stands, breaking a female fan’s nose. But there was no replay. Not in the ensuing 19-minute delay. Not in the subsequent 10th inning.
“We didn’t want to sensationalize the situation and glorify what happened,” said Mike Anastassiou, executive producer of FSN Southwest. “It was a pretty weird scene out there.”
Anastassiou compared the chair toss to an unruly fan running onto the field or a fight in the stands.
“We wouldn’t show that either,” he said.
Fox Sports Network’s Bay Area cable operation, which was televising the game in the Oakland area, had no problem showing replays that put a Rangers player in a negative light.
Anastassiou said that not replaying the Francisco chair toss had nothing to do with FSN Southwest’s relationship with the Rangers.
“They were on their home turf,” he said referring to the Bay Area broadcast. “We did what we thought was right.”