Joe Suck & Dim Tim: The FOX SPORTS IS SATAN thread

Paraphrasing (typical "I am being profound here" tone): "I don't like jewelry. Never have, never will. And besides -- someone could get injured out there." (The large number of jewelry-related injuries during the many, many years of on-field jewelry wear bear this out -- don't they, Tim?) "Baseball players wear uniforms because they're uniform." Cue wisecracks with Buck about chokers, broaches, and whatnot.

it wasn't that bad a rant, considering.

shea park... it is a park!

was it better or worse than joe morgan on which side of the mound tyler yankeerookie fell off on?

better. i mean, seriously, these guys have NOTHING on Joe Morgan

Comparing Buck & Tim to Joe Morgan is like comparing a steaming pile of shit in your living room to a steaming pile of shit in your dining room. Which is to say that they're both a bit nutty.

you need more fiber in your diet, david.

or less.

"The silent treatment is no one congratulates you."

"On pace... interesting term, "on pace"... I don't like that term... because if Magglio gets hit or injured he's suddenly OFF the pace."

OK, Tim, if Magglio remains healthy the rest of the year and continues to hit doubles at the rate he is currently hitting them, he will break the record.

Tim, on Soriano's home/away splits: "If ever numbers were understandable, in my view, it's those numbers."

THANK YOU - I was watching w/ a friend when EZ Mac spit that out, and he wondered why I had a "huh?" look on my face.

glad i was watching this in a bar -- even the lame tunes the fratboys were playing was preferable.

has every team those horrifying Actober promos have centered on bitten the dust? the Dane (Cook) Curse?

now only if dane cook would bite some dust

bw there were def ones for both sox and yankees

I predict much mccarver insight on the d-backs success...

we'll see if they're still around by the time Fox gets to do a series.

I keep/kept waiting for the Nats one.

btw, Fox has only the ALCS and the WS.

Matt (Amherst, MA): Did McCarver just call that error Westbrook's fault?

Keith Law: (7:33 PM ET ) I have the sound down, as usual.

i think it was game 2 when they cut to okajima sitting in the dugout and mccarver was like "and there's matsu.... hideki....... one of the asian players"

I hate Joe Buck but he is so much better than Chip Carey. If they had Bob Brenly instead of McCarver it would be a pretty decent broadcast.

Nothing on the Who'da thunk leadoff HRs lead to more big innings than leadoff walks?

"Joe, even though we can't tell how much of Colorado's shitty performance is due to the 8-day layoff, I'm going to assert that Francis' and Morales' pitching is 'EVIDENCE' without there being a shred of it."

oira61 (San francisco, CA): Who has worse hair: Jeannie Zelasko or Eric Byrnes? Is there a statistical way of addressing this?

Nate Silver: I think what you'd need to do is cut of a lock from each of them and put it into a mass spectrometer to see how many different hair products had been used.

"those are my guys"
McCarver on van halen

yeah wtf was that about, i had the sound turned down

same here. i switched to castiglione by the third inning.

betcha Zelasko is a tigress in bed

otm

Joe Buck can't read a script when that Sesame Street "1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12" song is being played.

And why that song? Boston was up 13-1 at that point.

at least Buck knows how to say "Yorvit"

i swear i heard mccarver slip and say "white sox" last night

Getting Yankees/Angels today instead of Brewers/Braves or White Sox/Royals.

I say, "Forget you, Fox Sports." But not like that. With bad language.

And the Rays/Tiger game starts at 6:10, so the only people seeing the first couple innings live will have to be there.

Oh, these two.

Given Buck's encomium to Vin Scully last night, I'm sure he and McC will happily slip out of the booth if the Dodgers make the WS to let Vin handle the broadcasts, solo?

DON'T WANNA HEAR 2 MINUTES ON THIS WEEKEND'S NFL SHIT DURING A FUCKING WORLD SERIES INNING

http://www.cornerstorkbabygifts.com/images/product/mute-button.jpg

Switch to the SAP feed. The Spanish announcers make more sense to this gringo.

The local sports talk guys were absolutely ripping into Buck this morning. It was great.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-kaus/broadcast-sports-buck-and_b_136056.html

http://www.salon.com/sports/daily/feature/2008/10/23/game_1_notes/

I don't know about you but I still don't know what Maddon was talking about when he said Hamels "doesn't read." I suspect McCarver doesn't know either. It's entirely possible Welke doesn't know, though he said he understood. His reply didn't address the "reader" business.

If McCarver didn't know, he should have said, "I don't know." And then Fox should have had one of its two sideline reporters, Ken Rosenthal or Chris Myers, ask Maddon what he meant and report back.

last night Smug Joe repeats McC's error that Ruiz was born in Venezuela. Where's the producer?

Phillies upset about World Series introductions

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2008/news/story?id=3662873

Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell said that since the 2004 World Series Fox has only broadcast the starting lineups. He said it was a joint decision between Major League Baseball and the network to try and get to the first pitch faster during the broadcast.

Bbbut we were told the ratings go up as it gets later in the night...?

There was a great article on BP a couple weeks ago on McCarver's assertion that, re Mauer's uniqueness, catchers' BAs tend to fall later in the game and later in the season. Actually, says the data, NO.

Also this interview with Fox's MLB producer, who reveals that the reason OBP isn't shown onscreen for the batter is that Tim doesn't like the stat:

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=9401

Howie Rose doing excellent job of filling in with Buck-level stupidity: Mets need to GET MORE DIRTY-UNIFORM PLAYERS LIKE SHANE VICTORINO

http://www.amazon.com/McCarver-Sings-Selections-American-Songbook/dp/B002OJGGH6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1252919362&sr=1-1

hey, they're actually showing NY the Twins-Tigers instead of a meaniningless Cards-Cubs game! How'd this happen?

i like Yankee fans in the Astro game better, ya troll

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/23/sports/baseball/john-smoltz-named-lead-baseball-analyst-for-fox.html?_r=0

Fox Sports named John Smoltz, the Hall of Fame pitcher, its lead baseball analyst on Tuesday, replacing the team of Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci after only two seasons.

Smoltz has called games for Fox the last two seasons but has chiefly worked for MLB Network. As analysts for Fox and Fox Sports 1, Reynolds and Verducci were seen as overly talkative and lacking strong chemistry.

great news!

...which puts HR one step closer to being employed by the Marlins.

Joe Buck admits that hair plug addiction almost ended his career

http://www.sfgate.com/sports/article/Joe-Buck-hair-plug-addiction-voice-loss-9874173.php

lololl excellent Onion headline.

FoxSports.com has gone all-video, so Ken Rosenthal can't write there

the people... demanded it?

a cunning plan devised by an executive who was abruptly fired last week for sexual harassment

https://deadspin.com/please-enjoy-21-years-of-joe-buck-hyping-forgotten-f-1819646868
this is pretty funny

look at the dance about 1:12 into that video

wtf

this inspires me to try to get to work on the most pointless baseball-related supercut of all time, though. in the 8th inning of just about every cardinals broadcast, dan mclaughlin reads out the attendance figures for the game in the same exact way, saying the total, and then reading out each digit, one at a time, e.g., "Forty-Two Thousand, Seven Hundred Thirty-One... 4 - 2 - 7 - 3 - 1". i've always wanted to isolate just the "4 - 2 - 7 - 3 - 1" part of that from each game so that he'd be reading out digits for thirty minutes straight with ambient baseball crowd noise in the background.

i'm glad it inspired you

while the other networks are showing reruns, you'll experience the passion, magic, and the mystery of ROAR. an epic new series premiering this monday 9 eastern, 8 central on FOX.

i remember seeing the promos for arrested development and thinking 'that looks stupid'

and you were right!

so that he'd be reading out digits for thirty minutes straight

This would sound like those infamous radio "numbers stations" of the Cold War.

nah it was p. good

xp or ned raggett reading the digits of pi

do it KM

joe buck is singing 'candyman' right now, occasionally substituting 'grandyman'

don't really care about the 'redemption' narrative, but this is good

https://www.theringer.com/mlb/2017/10/25/16539596/alex-rodriguez-redemption-mlb-on-fox-world-series

Schmoo: We heard Smoltz talk about establishing the fastball, something McCullers obviously didn’t do in his crazy curveball outing. Do you think Hill actually needs to “establish the fastball”?

Jeff Sullivan: That expression doesn’t mean anything

lmao

https://i.imgur.com/GJlPoao.jpg

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2018/05/joe-buck-mlb-tnf-riddick-rowe-helwani/

JOE BUCK TO SKIP TNF IF MLB POSTSEASON CONFLICTS

Fox Sports play-by-play voice Joe Buck, who is set to work an unprecedented schedule this fall that includes the NLCS, World Series and Thursday Night Football, will prioritize baseball over TNF if the events conflict. Buck told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that if any of his baseball assignments are postponed to a Thursday night, he will skip TNF.

Even if all goes according to schedule, Buck’s fall schedule will be unusually hectic. During the World Series, he will potentially work nine nights out of ten in four different cities. As has been the case for most of his career, Buck will not work Sunday NFL games during the postseason.

worst timeline iirc

Buck’s fall schedule will be unusually hectic

kenny albert scoffs

Jessica Mendoza said that when she saw Smoltz at Fenway on Saturday and told him she was headed to address the Saberseminar, his reaction was BLAUUUGH HOW COULD YOU

The Case For Joe Buck

pretty much agree with this tbh. we could (and usually do) do a great deal worse

my local paper runs a "why do people hate Joe Buck so much?" column every year. It's weird. I never really had a problem with him.

Feel like that article was written by a reputation management AI

Those calls from last year's WS are actually great examples of everything that's wrong with his announcing -- every big call goes something like this: "HOME RUN! (PLAYER'S NAME)! (SCORE OF GAME)!" with hard pauses after each exclamation. He never embellishes, never follows up these calls with interesting phraseology, nothing. Great announcing should be more than just yelling when the crowd is yelling.

He's not a horrible announcer by any means, but he adds nothing to the games for me. He also has a far more intuitive feel for the ebbs and flows of football.

Where's that Joe Buck?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maTiGsNeHR0

I watched a chunk of the Foxcast archive this morning to catch up on what I missed after I fell asleep in the 6th (this will happen most nights). The first thing about Buck's pedestrian-at-best style is he almost never tells me anything (useful) I didn't know already. Really, all that "access" and you can't manage that?

But fuckin' Smoltz is even worse. Mid-game he said something about the evening had been ripe with "action and execution." He also works endless variations on "these teams are good."

baseball's kind of a weird sport to announce. 54 outs, maybe 10-15 hits/walks over a 2.5 hour broadcast (minus commercials) = something happening every 2 minutes. so there's a lot of dead space to fill. it's kind of a unique skill that very few people seem to possess. how many announcers can emulate what Bob Uecker does?

from last night's FG chat:

5 Run Homer:
Did Joe Buck just call steal a base steal a taco a “rich tradition”?

Jay Jaffe:
It made him richer.

Dan Szymborski:
Steal a base, steal a taco seems to be the part of baseball that Buck is the most interested in and the part for which he can give the most detailed explanation.

AdamZ:
Joe Buck: something something launch angle. John Smoltz: has aneurysm.

baseball's kind of a weird sport to announce. 54 outs, maybe 10-15 hits/walks over a 2.5 hour broadcast (minus commercials) = something happening every 2 minutes. so there's a lot of dead space to fill. it's kind of a unique skill that very few people seem to possess. how many announcers can emulate what Bob Uecker does?

― frogbs, Wednesday, October 24, 2018 7:43 AM (three hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i mean to be honest while it's a skill very few people possess, i think enough possess it that Joe Buck's mediocrity shouldn't be tolerated. as a Cubs fan i compare Joe Buck's lifeless call of the final out of the 2016 world series vs Matt Vasgersian's call of Bote's walkoff grand slam vs the Nats a couple months back. Buck is a generic pro announcer, he's basically the Tom Bergeron of play by play dudes, Vasgersian is a pro. And I don't even really think Vasgersian is really *great* as much as he gets into it.

disagree -- vasgersian sucks imo. he has the voice for it, but a) he's a dick, and b) i'd rather have a subdued buck than a guy who ramps up the fake excitement for routine fly balls

at least we were spared ernie johnson this year (not that i want him to have health problems)

i just can't deal with Joe Buck's strained efforts at caring, the energy he brings is at the same level as if he was moderately interested in the fact Men's Wearhouse is having a big weekend sale.

Smoltz is much worse than Buck these days, which is weird because I don't remember disliking him on TBS.

smoltz fucking blows

i can't stand people who are vehemently anti-intellectual about fucking BASEBALL

annoyingly laid out, but accurate: https://www.dodgerthoughts.com/2018/10/24/thoughts-about-john-smoltz-in-five-parts

(caveat: anyone who writes Whenever a manager or a front office or an owner puts a team on the field in a baseball game, the goal is to win. obviously doesn't watch many pirates or marlins games)

Joe Buck last night let us know the number of intentional walks handed to the Red Sox in the first game of the world series. That number? At time of writing it stands at 2.

FG chat again:

Mike:

Joe buck continues to believe that the team with the highest walk rate, lowest swing rate and highest pitches per pa in MLB are an aggressive bunch of hackers because they hit 235 home runs.

@EricFisherSBJ
MLB and Fox Sports, as expected, announce a multiyear rights extension that will keep the World Series, All-Star Game, and ~half of the playoffs on Fox networks. Starting in '22, more games on Fox broadcast network. Deal also has expanded streaming, highlight and social rights

@EricFisherSBJ
Industry sources say MLB’s new rights deal w Fox Sports is a 7-yr deal covering the 2022-28 seasons and is worth about $5.1B, about a 50 percent bump from the current term.

@EricFisherSBJ
Also expect Joe Buck and John Smoltz to be a part of Fox MLB coverage as long as they want to. With regard to Buck particularly, Shanks said, "I can't imagine Fox baseball without Joe Buck."

failures of imagination by powerful men are what got us to this hell world

“How do you change the narrative?” There is no narrative. They’re the players, John. They play the game and are judged by the score.

— Joe Sheehan (@joe_sheehan) October 18, 2019

AP:

Fox will be taking viewers out to the ballgame by adding a virtual crowd in parks during its baseball telecasts this season.

The network revealed on Thursday that it will include computer-generated fans in the stands beginning with their three games on Saturday. Fox begins its coverage with Milwaukee at the Chicago Cubs, followed by San Francisco at Los Angeles Dodgers, and concluding with the New York Yankees at Washington.

Simulacra and Simulation

joe buck leaving fox for espn!

i’m sure it’s for an incredible amount of money but i’m still surprised