Broadcasters - Search/Destroy

Steve Stone filled in for Santo in the playoffs last year, when Ronnie was in surgery in Arizona -- and I just couldn't deal with it. Hughes would make a generalization, and Stone would come in and be like, "Well, that's not actually true, Pat." I just wasn't used to someone correcting Hughes, who's a pretty smart broadcaster himself.

http://www.powermaxconsulting.com/a_caray1.jpg

Then a couple times an inning Hughes will lead him: "Clement's looking good today, Ronnie..." That extra "Ronnie" punctuating the sentence as if to say "wake up over there, little buddy!"

What did he say?

Haha, true!

fucking destroy the white sox on wgn (harrelson, yes?). jesus. i never had wgn until this year, and that's okay.

gotta say that i like the orioles' staff. the p-b-p guys are capable (it is odd that i know that fred manfra was qb at oj simpson's high school, though). jim palmer suffers occasionally from hall-of-famer syndrome, but honestly not too much, and often lightens it up with an anecdote about how earl weaver kicked his ass. buck martinez is also good, and neither of them are nightmarish homers.

nats are kind of weird. on the radio side they've got two old school guys who switch roles every few innings. it's fine apart from the incessant mentions of the "rhythmic applause". television color is ron darling, who is fine content-wise but has strange inflection--everything he says sounds vaguely like a question. (when i mentioned to a friend back in april that darling was doing color he asked "has he talked about the no-hitter he threw in college yet?" to which the answer was yes, but the p-b-p guy brought it up.)

i dislike gary thorne on principle, but i think he's a decent announcer. steve stone is kind of awesome. the tbs guys are all right--i appreciate they way skip says 'chipperjones...'

"Fans, after the Pirates game next Saturday, please stay for a concert by the All-American Rejects sponsored by KROQ.

[pause]

You know alternative groups these days have the strangest names...

The other day I heard of a group named "Three Doors Down"...

[pause]

Makes you wonder who these guys are... where they live... Three Doors Down.

And the first pitch: change-up, fouled away...

How about "Alice In Chains"?...

[voice trails off slightly]

"The Greatful Dead"....

a spreadsheet listing the first 10,000 or so national TV games, and the broadcasters who called them.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AuEh2Uie-nSmdG1Na1d0dHhwUnFMQlE3VjZ5REJTbnc&output=html

I don't remember Koufax doing color for NBC in '72.

Nor did I know that Jackie Robinson worked games for ABC in '65.

that was completely awesome, spent way too much time looking at it.

I do remember the guest "third man" in the booth NBC did in summer '73... ranging from actual ex-regulars like Red Barber, Dizzy Dean and Mel Allen to Danny Kaye, Glen Campbell and... George C. Scott!

No recollection of Lupica doing color (1990 only, apparently). Good lord.

Saturday, Jan. 1, lists four bars: the Back Room, still on Rush Street, plus three long-ago joints: 20 E. Delaware, Sully’s and Peppy’s, with expenses for each $10.30, $9.97, $10, and $8.95. This in a year when a six-pack of Old Style set you back $1.29.

You needed to cite who you entertained to get the write-off, so on New Year’s Day he lists Dave Condon, the Tribune sports columnist; Billy Sullivan, who owned Sully’s; and Joe Pepitone, the former Yankees first baseman who had been traded to the Cubs.

And so it begins. A chain of old-time Chicago bars — Riccardo’s, Boul Mich, Mr. Kelly’s. A posse of early 1970s sports figures — Wilt Chamberlain, Don Drysdale, Gale Sayers. Plus a few unexpected blasts from the past: boxer Jack Dempsey, comedian Jack Benny.

“These guys did nothing but go out and have a few cocktails,” said Jimmy Rittenberg, who owned Faces, which Caray visited 14 times in 1972. “I don’t know how they did it. They were 20, 30 years older than me and I couldn’t keep up with them.”

Jan. 16 something unusual happens. Caray is in Miami, yet there are no expenses, just one enigmatic word, “Super.”

After that break, if indeed it was, comes 288 consecutive days in bars, not only in Chicago, but New York City, and of course on the road with the Sox, beginning with spring training in Sarasota.

http://www.suntimes.com/sports/27767026-419/harry-caray-diary-tracked-every-drink-every-bar-in-1972.html#.U5H44vldVyy

Free BP article on some staff faves; decent read including the comments, where the writers are taken to task for picking hometown guys, which the commenters then mostly do as well.

I didn't know Dewayne Staats likes to call balls "non-strikes."

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=24352

Are broadcasters employed by the network or the team? Mix of both? How much does it matter? In some cases, the network is owned or co-owned by the team, right? (eg YES)

it used to be a mix, but maybe team is increasingly the answer?

That's sort of my thinking too. I wish Cot's had a broadcasters section — I'd love to know who's cutting the checks to the mouths who jibjab on my teevee. In the case of the Braves I'd guess Fox for Chip and the team for Joe Simpson, but who the hell knows for sure?

i'd be pretty sure the guys sitting next to each other have the same boss.

hmm, not sure I could assume that.

search: jim deshaies

Pete Rose is joining Fox Sports:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2435097-pete-rose-to-join-fox-sports-as-baseball-analyst?utm_source=cnn.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=editorial

I'm actually excited for this.

He'll probably not want to be seen making calls during the broadcast.

not really the right thread but w/e

the centerstage w/ chris russo is amazing, in response to why he got sent to boarding school -

"in 8th grade i got a 50 on a spanish final and my mother loved spanish and her beloved only child gets a 50 on the final she said thats it get him outta here"

That's it, huh?

well he also said that lebron is no michael jordan

this is a bad list

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/jul/11/best-mlb-broadcast-teams-baseball

Had no idea that Steve Berthiaume likes baseball so much.

That was the worst list

Keith Hernandez really needs an intervention where he is told that every truth he introduces with "When I was a kid" IS AN ILLUSION.

Keith: "You could count on the guys like Mays, McCovey, Jimmy Davenport every year"

Davenport (SFG 3b)'s WAR in his seasons as a regular, 1958-69:

1.3, 1.8. 1.1, 2.9, 4.8, 0.9, 1.2, -0.2, 1.2, 3.5, 0.1, -0.4

Decent career, and could charitably be called consistent for perhaps his first 5 seasons. (When Keith was a Bay Area rooter between ages 4 and 9, which is the relevant stat here.)

I guess I am going to have to fire up the archive of last night's Cards game; from FB:

Tim McCarver just went on an epic rant (even for him) against pitch counts, sabermetrics, and the world in general. Anyone have the ability to get video of the bottom of the 5th? It was unreal. I wasn't even mad, just laughing. Dan McLaughlin, the play by play guy, did an amazing job of egging him on and subtly mocking him.[

.@RealMichaelKay: An over-reliance on analytics likely cost the Yankees in the ALDS. pic.twitter.com/P4EiF004FR

— YES Network (@YESNetwork) October 10, 2018

such a massive idiot

The NYT Mag article on the Mets' booth a couple weeks ago was pretty good

SEARCH: The current Statler and Waldorf of MLB broadcasting (tele or radio)?

watched an orioles broadcast for the first time in a long time today; jim palmer is still great at 79 -- what hall-of-fame player also has a voice that good? it just sounds like baseball -- and i quite like kevin brown. i'll assume ben mcdonald is an acquired taste

https://awfulannouncing.com/mlb/gary-cohen-matt-shaw-charlie-kirk-memorial-cubs-mets.html

had the misfortune to read comments on twitter around this and so far the right thinks it's hypocritical because (i) sandy koufax and shawn green both have not played on yom kippur and (ii) gary cohen took the weekend off when his dog died

so stupid, sorry just have to vent

i feel like this new generation of players were raised differently than many of us.

i think back to momentous sentimental homeruns like Dee Gordon's where he flip-flopped switch hit in tribute (not featured in video), then raked a Big Sexy meatball into the RF stands in tribute to Niño:

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

it's obviously a different case when your teammate dies rather than your favorite podcaster, but in the long run it's more impactful and more legendary tribute as what you can do as a ball player.

Chris Sale did a Luis Tiant tribute in spring training this year

https://www.mlb.com/video/chris-sale-pays-tribute-to-luis-tiant-with-1st-pitch

They were never teammates but Sale obviously knew him from his time with the Sox and spent time with him

in both of those examples the player actually played and didn't take time off, which is what Gary was getting at. if shaw had done a treinen thing and wrote charlie kirk on his cap or jersey or w/e i don't think this would still be a story

like the cubs were short a player for that game against the reds, they didn't get to call anybody up

Dodgers are 2W-7L in games featuring Treinen since the CK school shooting.

That's the ultimate tribute: blowing your team's season.

truly one of the worst game-ending calls I have ever witnessed

https://www.mlb.com/video/payton-tolle-in-play-out-s-to-alejandro-kirk-qyyyfv

MLB edited the audio to make it sound as if DOB actually saw what was happening in real time

https://www.instagram.com/p/DPAebgTDS3l/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9rJFDUKMCk

rip john sterling

Salute big man. You and Michael Kay were the voices of the bombers the year of the "greatest team ever" when i watched almost every single Yankees game that season on WPIX channel 11, turning the volume down on the TV and turning on the radio to hear you. Kay was a blowhard whose only redeeming feature was the way he'd describe the uniforms at the beginning of the game, like an audio version of a close-up, but you and your gallant baritone made each game feel like an occasion. Even if I hated the Yankees from a theological point of view I grew to love Scott Brosius and Mariano and David Wells and fuckin... fuckin okay I hated most of them but they were a hell of a team and I'll always think of your voice and that team. Nelson to Stanton to Mariano was as deadly a gauntlet as i think I've ever seen in the pen.

Inning over. Ballgame over. RIP