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?

Steven Goldman re the Dim Tim album:

I really, really hate to alert McCarver to the fact that "A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square" is not part of the American Songbook, though Americans have sung it. It was written by two British fellows and made famous by Vera Lynn, the same chanteuse who is presently keeping the reissued Beatles CDs off the top of the charts in Great Britain.

The Amazon page has audio clips now!

Did McCarver just say that nobody had better muscle memory than Dwight Halladay?

he also insinuated that pelfrey is a better pitcher than cole hamels (and a borderline #1 starter!) in the inning where he comes up 6 runs

hey tim stop sucking pedroias dick

followed up by referring to the yankees singing sabathia as a "shrewd" move.

Hey why don't we go get one of the best pitchers in baseball and pay him a gazillion dollars?

Hmm, that would be pretty shrewd, let's do it.

this moment of silence is awesome.

hey, NL baseball to keep everyone (?) awake.

Who was silence for?

robin roberts probably?

I figured, but Phillie game wasnt on here til Boston rain delay.

roberts and the tigers announcer, forget his name

Ernie Harwell.

You heathen.

did anyone else catch the part where he was talking about Carlton Fisk and the famous game 6 home run. then describes a yankee Francisco Cervelli RBI as "and Carlton Fisk is very proud of this young man Cervelli, and his maturation as a catcher."

why would he be proud with no involvement in the organization? and why did Fisk drive all the way home to New Hampshire after the game 6 shot? did his dad die or something?

cervelli is making everyone proud

ive heard that story abt fisk but i cant recall the details

Joe Suck: The fans have done a great job voting Jason Heyward into the All-Star OF.

No and you suck.

And fuck your NBA analogies.

Joe: Does Strasburg deserve to be in the All-Star game, with only 4 starts under his belt?
Tim: Strasburg has three starts left before the All-Start game. I'll tell you what, Joe. If he wins all three of those games, then he deserves to be in. And if he doesn't win all three of those games, but his ERA is still around the 2.00 mark, then he probably deserves to be in.

Tim (about 20 seconds later): This may be an overstatement, but I'm gonna say it anyway: if Stephen Strasburg isn't in the All-Star game, it will be an INJUSTICE to America, to America and baseball.

whaa?

can't wait to see R.A. Dickey and Carlos Silva take on the AL's finest in the ASG

oh why god did they let tommy lasorda and reggie jackson in the both with tim and joe

I turned it off right there. I have limits.

^^^awesome

Kevin Millar almost makes me long for McCarver

100x worse: Joe Simpson has this series off, so the Braves team is Chip Caray + Ron Gant. Gant is so nervous, he can't keep himself from just jabbering nonstop. And Caray is awful as usual.

OK, Millar's Marv Albert impression is worse.

Tim McCarver backtracked Monday from the comparison he made Saturday between the Yankees’ treatment of Joe Torre’s legacy as manager to the way World War II despots, “primarily in Russia and Germany,” airbrushed former generals out of photographs “after they had shot ’em.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/20/sports/baseball/20bats.html

Ben Lindbergh of BP: "With a cold, Joe Buck sounds only slightly less like he wants to be broadcasting a baseball game than usual."

This guy doing the Braves-Giants game with Karros has such a strong lisp! It's weird that that's not an impediment to broadcasting if you have good timbre and can jabber on without saying "uh".

Must be Josh Lewin, who's far more tolerable than most of the others. Not sure why he's not doing the Rangers games anymore.

Yeah, it's Lewin. He's ok (by Fox standards).

i like lewin

karros blamed panda being fat on late night snacking

Lewin got canned because Nolan Ryan didn't like him, supposedly. Dumb move, his replacement (John Rhadigan) is terrible.

what the FUCK are these bozos saying? howbout just "we think Posada might quit after rhe game"?

I assume the league and the Yanks could figure out some sort of real punishment against Fox if they were more explicit, but Fox could spill it obliquely.

Joe Buck declared that the Mets won't be re-signing Reyes, obviously, bacause of their financial problems that he's read about. Such a turdsucker.

they're gonna re-sign reyes?

do you think it's a fait accompli that they're not? suddenly they're the A's?

no, i don't -- they could probably do well by being the A's tho

hey look, more prostate-charity Fathers Day mike time for gigantic crook Michael Milken

what is the opposite of chemistry? because that's what ernie johnson & john smoltz have

EJ is a standard-issue radio-style puker when he's away from his TNT basketball duties imo; Smoltz is interesting enough to overcome whoever he's with.

smoltz is great when he's talking about the pitcher

Will Boston ever recover from that beer vendor's tragic mistake?!

Red Sox not in the playoffs, but thank god we will get a little taste of it during the ALCS. Fuck you Fox. I rather have Pierzynski or whoever you spell it..

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/big_league_stew/post/Terry-Francona-will-fill-in-for-Tim-McCarver-dur?urn=mlb-wp22759

HOMER

Uh, hi, Mr. Meyers. I've been doing some thinking, and I've got some ideas to improve the show. I got it right here. (pulls out a piece of paper) One, Poochie needs to be louder, angrier, and have access to a time machine. Two, whenever Poochie's not onscreen, all the other characters should be asking "Where's Poochie"? Three--

http://www.rob-clarkson.com/duff-brewery/poochie/02.gif

count yr blessings w/ Francona, ABC put Reggie Jackson in the World Series booth at least once.

Fingers crossed that McCarver's minor heart procedure somehow leaves him with mangled vocal cords.

i'm actually liking the Joe Buck game tonight (though i know in the past he has been intolerable).

Tim McCarver is the bigger problem with the Fox broadcast.

Joe Buck just said "game over" with the last out, WTF. haha

Posnanski on the decline of McCarver (and he's absolutely right about the Mets days):

I loved McCarver. Absolutely loved the guy. Every at-bat, it seemed, he taught me baseball. It was that way for a long time. I honestly believe that McCarver was one of the great pioneers in baseball commentary, the John Madden of his sport in many ways. He was the first I knew who could really break down what the pitcher was trying to do, why he was trying to do it, how the hitter was trying to counter it, and so on. He broke down the game in a way I can never remember any other color commentator doing it. And he was a good story teller too. If I'm listing the greatest color commentators in baseball history, he's right up at the top.

Trouble is, McCarver has been doing this a long time. And one of the sad truths is that sports color commentary tends to have an expiration date...

http://joeposnanski.blogspot.com/2011/10/baseball-on-fox.html

I wiki'd him a few days ago -- he just turned 70. Losing it rapidly.

Congrats to McCarver!

http://baseballhall.org/news/press-releases/tim-mccarver-named-2012-ford-c-frick-award-winner-broadcasting-excellence

hoo boy, if they had given it to him around '95 they'd be blameless

"What a play by Alexei Ramirez" -- Thom Brennaman (on a play made by the opposing shortstop)

If Don Sutton's kid and Eric Karros are the future of the Saturday game, this planet can't blow up soon enough.

Eric Karros is brutally boring.

7.7 career war

one down, one to go

RT @EricFisherSBJ: Fox Sports announces Tim McCarver will not work past the 2013 season.

hooray!

this year: mute button

ohh lord thank u for listenin to these prayers

they will only find someone worse to replace him, you realize that right?

Steve Lyons is available, isn't he?

free steve stone

McCarver and Mr Koo's Game (I was at Shea that day):

http://www.sbnation.com/2013/3/27/4153312/tim-mccarver-retirement

I am already cursed with Steve Lyons who does all the dodgers road games thank you very much.

no doubt it'll be Kevin Millar or Harold Reynolds

Guessing Fox employee Eric Karros

Kevin Millar is worse than ebola

one of the most painful broadcasts ive had to endure was a Sat afternoon FOX game with Joe Buck + Kevin Millar. All the folksy shit gave Buck a ton of discernable contempt and auditory eyerolls. It got so rough I actually started feeling bad for Millar. So no, they won't be a future pairing.

i'd forgotten how horrendous Eric Karros is. And Nolan Ryan doing NASCAR promos -- my life is complete.

It wouldn't surprise me if McCarver didn't even make it through this season, and had to announce he's got Alzheimers or something. This is really sad to listen to.

Buck is attempting to grow a crop of gravitas or credibility or something on his face.

maura johnston @maura

joe buck just said 'no duh'

Such an honor to be watching this meaningful Yankees-Giants game.

Yanks still have a 1.8% shot

i watched.

the Fox package is going to be interesting next year. there is good in this as i will be able to see more Giant games on Saturday. the bad news is there will be a lot less network games going forward.

happy 72nd birthday, dim tim

http://cdn2.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/BUCK-MCCARVER-HIGH-FIVE.gif

Buck is a pregame drinker i guess

http://www.amazinavenue.com/2013/10/23/4864484/the-case-for-tim-mccarver-30-years-ago

A Year to Remember has been empirically proven the best highlight film of all time. Find me another example of this genre that employs musical montages set to "Karn Evil #9," "Wild Boys," and "You Belong to the City." Go ahead, I defy you.

lol, J0rdan and I saw most of this during a rain delay at Citi this summer.

I don't remember McC calling the 2001 Gonzalez hit in advance, but apparently it happened. I *do* remember Deion S dumping ice on him.

Al Michaels: “Howard (Cosell) was sour and dour and took all the joy away from everybody on the crew. He had an ‘I-don’t-want-to-be-here’ attitude. When Roone Arledge made the switch, I said, ‘I’ve got McCarver?’ This was the greatest trade of all time.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/23/sports/baseball/anticipating-his-next-play-tim-mccarver-is-closing-out-an-era.html

http://cdn3.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/2013-October-23-20-10-47.jpg

who let them wear checked shirts of slightly different scales?

I watched the clip of the Salty/Breslow play, and Tim said they've been talking "since April about how LOTS of games are lost by pitchers throwing to bases."

He's really going out on top.

Paraphrasing from last night: "I would say about 70% of swinging strike outs are on pitches out of the zone...but it depends on the pitcher."

I think that's close to true of all swinging strikes?

angell demurs: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/10/goodbye-tim-mccarver.html

well, Roger's over 90.

http://www.baseballnation.com/2013/11/1/5056084/tim-mccarver-fox-baseball-replacement-harold-reynolds-candidates

The answer to all of this is MUTE btw

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/12/09/tim-mccarvers-broadcasting-days-arent-over-yet/

Tim McCarver retired as Fox’s leading analyst after the World Series. But he’s not dropping the mic just yet: Fox Sports Midwest is about to hire him to do a limited number of Cardinals games next season.

JESUS CHRIST, COME ON.

dodgers hired orel away from espn

i don't mind orel too much, based off of my limited experience listening to him. and although mccarver is the devil, he is probably better than al hrabosky in the cards' booth. and yes, that is very very sad.

Dodgers replacement for vin is currently Charlie Steiner so this Orel news is music to my ears.

Orel is pretty much with old-school will-to-win crap, like McCarver you'll never hear any advanced metrics from him.

charley steiner is 64! he's like the prince charles of dodgers broadcasters

Harold Reynolds, Tom Verducci to join FOX World Series broadcast team, per report

http://www.sbnation.com/2014/2/27/5455632/tom-verducci-harold-reynolds-joe-buck-fox-baseball-2014-world-series

Good luck TV non-muters

Fox sticking a toe in the sabermetric Rubicon for NLCS Game 1

http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/10/02/fox-is-going-to-experiment-with-an-new-kind-of-commentary-for-game-1-of-the-nlcs/

Rob Neyer talks to Fangraphs about Saturday night's sabercast of Cards-Giants:

http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/discussing-the-nlcs-powered-by-jabo-with-rob-neyer/

This will be awesome or a huge train wreck, there's probably no inbetween.

train wreck > Harold Reynolds

will this be avail on mlb.tv, anybody know?

not 100% sure, but i think it's not. it's a miracle that they're even playing a few of the NLCS games on mlb.tv, so it seems unlikely that they'd add on a second channel.

i'm curious to see what sabermetrics taken seriously looks like on cable without brian kenny the excited beagle

Can we get a title mod edit posthaste? ILB should afford homophobia no sanctuary.

what

suck is not gender or orientation specific, esp when it means SUCKS BADLY

were the real fox guys making fun of them the whole time? i turned it on and immediately heard a return of the jedi joke

it's a miracle that they're even playing a few of the NLCS games on mlb.tv

international fans get 'em all :)

@keithlaw
I thought I heard that. “@kentonwong: @keithlaw Joe Buck believes the pitcher's spot is due up 2nd in next inning...”

He corrected himself about five minutes later.

تقومون به الله
عمل

pretty interesting look at fox's decision-making regarding volquez -- kinda sounds like it was pretty much up to rosenthal?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2015/10/28/why-fox-held-the-story-of-edinson-volquezs-fathers-death-even-when-most-viewers-already-knew/?postshare=6331446053265266

Heard on MLB Tonight @HeardOnMLBT
I'm being straight up honest. I have no idea what run differential is. - Harold Reynolds

haha

https://twitter.com/based_ball/status/660658536242810880

(it takes a big man to change his mind 180 in one day)

https://www.facebook.com/deadspin/videos/10156195180925072/

http://i.imgur.com/aiNEeR2.jpg

Untitled, Francis Bacon, 1989

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

thinking of you, Morbs

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/joe-buck-fractures-wifes-ankle-with-golf-drive-in-freak-accident-225349652.html

aww