Broadcasters - Search/Destroy

"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

Who was the guy on the left? He was right -- Sanchez and Stanton had a terrible approach against a pitcher who couldn't throw strikes.

2019 will be the final season for
steve blass (pirates)
marty brennaman (reds)

kirsten karbach, the minors' first female play-by-play broadcaster, has moved up to double-a reading. still a long way from MLB, but it's a big step up from the florida state league

wtf len kasper axed by the cubs and is now on white sox radio?

at least he can still say Chicogo in that weird way he does i guess, but that’s pretty fucked up

wow. honestly, i have better hopes for the 2020-25 chisox than the chisox (even with larussa), so maye it can make sense

'boog' sciambi is the cubs' new tv pbp guy

I still miss Boog from his one (?) season with the barves. But I haven't heard him in years, don't know if he's still good not bad.

i've liked him on espn. and he's kind of goofy in a way that should work well with deshaies

Somebody should take Eric Karros to the side and tell him he's starting to look like Dr. Steve Brule.

vasgersian out on espn sunday nights

absolutely love steve stone

The guy screaming "He has two strikes, Tony!" after Tony La Russa intentionally walked Trea Turner on a 1-2 count to pitch to Max Muncy who proceeded to hit a three-run homer is peak chef's kiss. (via @NBCSWhiteSox)pic.twitter.com/C9yaR0ZdBU

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 9, 2022

Posnanski was quite exasperated too:

https://joeposnanski.substack.com/p/la-russa-strange-days-indeed?s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

Isn’t it amazing how the people who most mock advanced statistics are the ones who rely on ultra-specific stats that could not possibly be more manufactured or meaningless?

i just want to say, regarding this and TLR

YES!!!!!!!!!

and it also applies to so many foolish baseball announcers who STILL don't know what OPS (and mock it?) is, let alone a real advanced stat

my favorite is when the announcers talk about how a particular player has performed against another team, going back several years. Never mind that these teams were each made up of different sets of players, so the only thing you're really analyzing is how the player performs when he is around a different uniform (which also changes).

i think a minor contributing factor of many of these things are the kind of stats and "interesting information" that is provided to the broadcasters in the booth. Each team has a Media Guide which is actually really fun to flip through. they're thick and compact, and you can quickly find ...a bunch of stats about each player that are ancient, just an ancient way of analyzing baseball or even thinking about it. "So and so had 45 RBIs on the road last year!" --- as Chris Farley would say, "Well LA DE FRICKIN DAH!". since many announcers are the least informed people in the game (dan mclaughlin of the cardinals is like this), they're not going to find information about any of the players, other than this media guide, along with whatever they can pick up while standing on the field like a giant fucking doofus during batting practice before the game

"Pujols is batting .900 against the pirates in his career..., jimmy..."

THAT'S BECAUSE YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT PUJOLS OF THE 2000s VS THE PIRATES OF THE 2000s, YOU FOOL!!!!

Each team has a Media Guide

Do they still put these out? I got swept up in a fever of completism a few years ago, and ended up spending ~$1,000 for just about every media guide for every team from the early '80s through to 2006. I assumed they stopped putting them out a few years ago because of Baseball Reference.

As of last year they did - I am retired/banned from the booth