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Ranting about Announcers

Bret Sabermetric Apr 23 2006 11:09 AM

I came across this intelligent 2004 rant about announcers generally, so good (and so not ripping the Mets' announcers) that I thought I'd post it here. Basically, it says things that I think are true faults of the Mets' announcers consistently, but see if you don't agree about the more general points that this guy (Brian somebody at http://redbirdnation.blogspot.com/ , now defunct) wrote: PASS THE MIC A few weeks ago SI.com ran a piece by Tom Verducci in which he picked his favorite baseball broadcasters of all time. I can’t complain much about his choices – personally I’d’ve picked Jack Buck over Harry Caray for play-by-play, but beyond that, who am I to say? I mean, I’ve never even heard Red Barber or Ernie Harwell or Curt Gowdy for more than ten seconds in a row. So I thought it might be fun to do the flipside of this article. But rather than draw up a list of my least favorite broadcasters, I’ll give you a list of my least favorite broadcasterisms – on-air tics, opinions, and idiocies that drive me up a wall. At first I thought I'd do a Top Ten list, but that's sort of a clam. Besides, I know you're busy, so instead I present to you my 9 Baseball Broadcast Pet Peeves, in no particular order: 1. No one sucks. Announcers often seem like they're covering a Little League game -- every hitter is dangerous, every pitcher has good stuff, and the newest player on the roster is a great pickup who gets a honeymoon period for at least a year. But the main beneficiaries of broadcaster largesse are veterans coasting by on reputation alone. Just tonight Al Hrabosky and Dan McLaughlin went on and on about what a fine pitcher Danny Graves was, even though he was getting hit hard, and even though he hasn't been sharp for two years now. In the same way, Jeff Bagwell is considered a top-shelf first baseman, despite a steady drop-off in value. Baseball announcers rely on rep particularly when it comes to glove men. Most guys in the booth don't know how to discuss defense beyond throwing around numbers of errors and excessively lauding certified Gold Glove winners. This generosity toward glove men sometimes bleeds over to entire glove teams. The goofiest example of this? Earlier this year Chip Carey intoned, "The Cardinals, as usual, terrific infield defense: Rolen, Luna, Womack, and Mabry." Okay, Rolen, sure, he's terrific, but then Luna? Wom -- ? Huh? Sometimes announcers go way out of their way to stroke the hometown players, for no particular reason. Take this comment about Brad Lidge from earlier this year, courtesy of Houston color man Bill Brown: "Only 1 out of 6 in save opportunities last year, but that’s deceptive, because your middle reliever is usually facing the heart of the order in the 8th inning, and many times your team regroups to come back and win." Do you follow that logic? See, those blown saves by Lidge were actually good things, because they allowed the hometown nine to collect a few come-from-behind wins. It would have been a lot more interesting -- and accurate -- if Brown had simply said Lidge sucked at saving games last year. Now, I know that's easy for me to say -- after all, broadcasters must maintain schmoozy relationships with managers and players, who are valuable sources for quotes, scoops, tips, and insights. But I don't see any reason why announcers can't do a sort of good cop/bad cop thing in the booth, where one guy (usually the ex-player) plays the role of organizational shill, constantly hyping the home team, while his partner plays Mr. Cynic. The dynamic would certainly be more interesting than the knee-jerk fanny-patting you hear from up in the booth. 2. Heads I Win, Tails You Lose This one bugs me. Broadcasters frequently frame the action on the field to retro-fit whatever philosophy they want. For example, if a guy knocks a base hit on the first pitch, the announcer might praise the guy for "being aggressive and going up there and swinging the bat." But if the same guy swings the bat and grounds out to second, then he was being too aggressive, not patient enough. Either way the broadcaster is right. The worst at this is Joe Morgan -- at times he just seems plain old dishonest. A few weeks ago a runner was caught stealing, and Morgan said something like, "He definitely got in under the tag on that one. Watch, you'll see on the replay..." And then ESPN showed the replay and, sure enough, you could see that the runner was clearly tagged out. Did Morgan admit his mistake? Of course not. Instead he said, "Well, you really can't tell from that angle." And he does that all the time. Heads, he wins; tails, you lose. 3. Dog Bites Man This refers, simply, to stating the obvious. My favorite recent example was from Brian Doolittle, who recorded this recent tidbit from the broadcast booth: "Scott Rolen is the type where if you make good pitches you will get him out a certain percentage of time." Very illuminating. Sometimes a baseball broadcast comes across as little more than a glurge of banalities: "you gotta put some runs on the board," "he likes his pitches out over the plate," "those walks will come back to haunt you," "you gotta put pressure on the defense," "the pitcher needs to own the inside of the plate," and on and on and on. To be fair, I can empathize with the difficulty of filling up an entire telecast with interesting things to say. I mean, imagine if you had to improvise for three hours straight, and someone was there to record everything you said. No doubt you'd say a lot of stuff that was just plain boring, or self-evident, or cliche. Hell, just last week Mike Shannon let author (and Cardinals fan) John Grisham take a turn behind the mike and do some play-by-play. He could not have come across as a bigger hack -- banalities and non-sequitors, one after the other. And mind you, this is a man who uses words for a living. The fact is, it's very hard to talk continuously, live, without an editor, for hours on end. So I appreciate the task. I just wish that when broadcasters were at a loss for something to say, they didn't fall back on the same old bromides, and instead went with their impulses and talked to us like fans. Or else they should go in the other direction -- get all technical and high-falutin' on us. When I first read Keith Hernandez's book Pure Baseball about 8 or 9 years ago, it was a revelation. Mex talked about the strategic cat-and-mouse games between pitcher and batter, the rationale behind various fielding schemes, and the intricacies of, say, holding runners on. After reading the book, I wondered why we don't get more of that talk from folks in the broadcast booth. I mean, there are some announcers who are good at that stuff (and Tim McCarver, for all his flaws, is one of the best), but we need more analysts who can actually analyze. That's practically the entire rationale for having ex-players up in the booth in the first place. But it often seems as if the guys who know a lot can't articulate what they know, and the guys who can articulate what they know don't know a lot. Frustrating. 4. Glove Inflation This is almost a subset of Peeve #1: a tendency to dispense superlatives that aren't deserved, especially when it comes to defensive plays. This is true any time a fielder hits the turf. Doesn't matter how easy the play is -- even if it's one of those cleat-first sliding catches that 99% of big leaguers can pull off in their sleep -- if a guy leaves his feet you're bound to hear rhapsodies gushing from the booth. I remember last year in Kansas City Aaron Guiel made a running, leaping, backhanded grab in right field. But the broadcaster was so busy bursting an aneurysm to heap praise on Guiel that he didn't notice, on the replay, that Guiel was playing the hitter too far to pull, got an awful jump, and then took a big wide loopy route to the ball. Yes, he recovered to make the catch, but it was a very routine play with cosmetic enhancements. 5. Misuse of Stats Big pet peeve. Most announcers are completely innumerate. It's bad enough that so few of them have adopted the language of sabermetrics, which long ago realized how overvalued fielding percentage was and how undervalued on-base percentage was. (For example, most broadcasters talk about what a great year Tony Womack is having because his batting average is 5th-best among NL leadoff hitters. Unfortunately his on-base percentage is only 11th-best among that same group.) But my bigger problem with announcers is their obsession with meaningless numbers. I'm sure a lot of this stuff is coming from some producer in the truck somewhere, but do we really need to know how a hitter does against any particular team? I mean, what do I care that Craig Biggio is hitting .310 lifetime against the Cardinals when I know that some of those ABs came against Joe Magrane? It says nothing about the matter at hand. Announcers in general are completely preoccupied with batter/pitcher matchups. You hear phrases like, "Roger Cedeno is hitting .400 against Brian Boehringer in his career." Yes. In five at bats. One of my favorite examples of booth innumeracy took place a couple weeks ago, when Mets broadcasters Keith Hernandez and Fran Healy were talking about Barry Bonds. Hernandez thought he was the greatest hitter on earth, whereas Healy thought Pujols may have passed him. Their exchange went like this: Hernandez: Do you know how hard it is to hit .352? Healy: Well, the argument against that is that Bonds gets a lot less chances to make outs. Chew on that one for awhile. You might find yourself entering the realm of no-mind, the way you would by pondering a zen koan for a really long time. Here's another fun example of statistical follies, from King Kaufman over at Salon.com: The Anaheim Angels had just scored a bunch of runs with two outs in their game against the Chicago White Sox Thursday when ESPN flashed a graphic saying the Angels score 40 percent of their runs with two outs. "Uh," thought I. "Is that a lot or a little?" I mean, it seems to me that a pretty healthy percentage of runs are going to score with two outs. There are only three possibilities -- no outs, one out or two outs -- so if everything were distributed evenly 33.3 percent of all runs would score with two outs. And since it sometimes takes a while to get runners around the bases, it makes sense that more than a third of the runs are going to score after two are gone… Forty percent just didn't seem that high to me, but analyst Buck Martinez launched into a lecture about how that stat reflects the Angels' scrappy personality, that they never give up on an inning, etc. and so on. It was a measure of their character, he said. As it turned out, at the beginning of that game the Angels had scored 39.3% of their runs with two outs. The AL average was 37%. Evidently that 2% difference was enough to prove whatever point Buck Martinez wanted to make about the Angels' tenacity, a view he probably held regardless of what the numbers said. 6. The Myth of Continuous Motion I don't know what to call this one exactly, but it's definitely a pet peeve. It's when announcers linger over some mistake -- usually an error or a guy thrown out on the bases -- and harp on it as the key to everything that happens afterwards. Example: August 6th, Cards vs. Mets on FSN. Matt Morris leads off the inning by coasting into second on a throwing error by Kaz Matsui. Marlon Anderson pinch runs, and So Taguchi bunts him over. And the Mets broadcaster, Ralph Kiner, gripes, “So instead of two outs, now there’s a runner on third one out.” Wait a minute -- why did Kiner presume two outs? Didn't the whole inning change after the error? Isn't that what set up the Cards sacrificing out #1? But Kiner wouldn't stop harping on it, and it really got on my nerves. The fact is, you can't just hypothetically extract one play and assume that everything else would proceed unaltered. Every play in baseball begets every other play. And yet mark my words: the next time a guy hits a home run after a caught stealing, you'll never hear the end of it, even though the hitter probably got a fat pitch precisely because of the dude who got gunned down on the bases. 7. Do the Hustle Al Hrabosky recently: “You gotta love Marlon Anderson – first-ball fastball hitter.” No, actually I don’t gotta love that. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like briskly played games, I like infield hits, and I like guys who sprint out of the box on a dead run (are you as amazed as I am these days at the number of guys standing and admiring their doubles off the wall?). I'll admit that hustle is more exciting than, say, sloth. But even more exciting than hustle are wins. Nonetheless, announcers still tend to reward spunk and aggressiveness, regardless of the context. If a guy is running all the way -- even it means he goes knee-first into an outfield wall, as Jim Edmonds did last year during a 12-3 blowout -- the boys in the booth will give him an A for effort. As Joe Sheehan once wrote, The thing about baseball that makes it different from other sports is that the absence of movement is often more valuable than movement. Not getting thrown out trying to advance is an invisible play that gets no reaction, whereas taking a base or getting thrown out trying is effort everyone can see. The learned behavior for baseball players is that the praise they get for hustling outweighs the criticism they receive for making bad decisions. This over-regard for hustle is part of a larger problem -- that is, the tendency of certain announcers to turn the scorebord into a moral battle. If a team wins, it's because they want it more; if they lose, it’s because they lack heart, or killer instinct, or whatever. Or so they say. You can see how broadcasters -- particularly ex-players -- might fall into this trap. After all, they themselves once played the game, and it's only natural that they framed their successes and failures in the most human terms. No one wants to think he succeeds because of some trend, or on account of the Law of Large Numbers. It's much easier to attribute on-field actions to attributes like hustle, or desire, or even chemistry. 8. Tanker Trunks of Testosterone This pet peeve is related to the one above. Announcers -- and again, they're often ex-players -- tend to revere machismo. Many of these guys played in the late '60s and '70s, and blame many of the ills of the modern game to a lack of balls. The end result is a lot of Bob Gibson nostalgia and a lot of talk about how pitchers need to take back the inside of the plate. I guess it's true to some extent, but it's a hobby horse that announcers are all too willing to jump on. But it's not just talk about the inside of the plate -- it's the whole unwritten code among manly baseball men that leads to ridiculous opinions, such as this one from Jeff Brantley, who thought Mike Hampton should put So Taguchi flat on his ass for daring to bunt off him after a home run. It's all pretty annoying. 9. Sap Sometimes the world of baseball broadcasting reminds me of Hollywood in the 1950's and '60s -- lot of a milquetoasts like Tab Hunter, Doris Day, and Rock Hudson. I'm praying that broadcasting will take the same route film did in the 1970's, when stars like Pacino, DeNiro, and Hoffman brought more unconventional voices, more ethnicity, and more rough edges to the movies. This is not to say that announcers should become a pack of shrill, yapping dogs (Steve Lyons and David Justice come to mind). But too many boothmen use the same vocal modulations, the same chipper inflections, on every play, as if they're recording a phone greeting for their answering machine. Contrast that with Joe Buck. Yes, he can come across at times as just another whitebread ironist, but he still has twice the personality of almost any announcer out there. Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "yeah, twice the annoying personality" -- but in some ways that's precisely the point. A good announcer should get under your skin. At least Buck mixes it up now and again and risks sounding silly or pissing people off. Hell, that was part of the fun of watching Howard Cosell all those years ago – he was someone to engage in, to argue with. I guess what I'm asking for is an authentic human voice out of the broadcast booth. What baseball needs is more people like Mike Shannon doing games. Or you know what? I would just settle for more people like you and me -- you know, fans.

Gwreck Apr 23 2006 01:28 PM

I can't believe that out-and-out rooting for one team isn't one of the 9 pet peeves. I'm curious as to which announcers you think fall victim to these things. Which of the Met announcers are so terrible? Personally, I'm not a fan of everyone, but now that Fran Healy is gone I'm confident the overall quality of the announcing crew isn't that bad.

mlbaseballtalk Apr 23 2006 02:33 PM

My favorite is when announcers or friends of announcers get called on being homers or "rooting" on the air. If I hear ONE more time Michael Kay say his "How DARE you" spiel the next time a caller to his show who dare suggests that Kay is a Yankee homer I will go down to One Penn Plaza, go up to the 17th floor and scream "How do you NOT at least have a small feeling for the team that you have been associated with for almost 20 years now?" That gets to me, its not so much someone being a flat out homer, but when they try to make it seem that they aren't objective despite years and years being associated with the franchise. I mean Gary Cohen is a Met fan, Gary Cohen will tend add a Met fan-like edge to some of his comments. Nothing wrong with that unless its so blantant that it blinds your coverage (Rizzuto, the Careys, ect) Also, how many times do defenders of national broadcasters say "Yeah but if you ask the other team's fan they'll say that they were biased FOR the team you root for." Vin Scully and Joe Gargiola in 1986 are often given this defense, despite the 1986 Mets being the most hated team in the sport at the time and the Red Sox being the "beloved franchise trying to win their first championship in almost 70 years" Come on, how could a non-Met fan NOT have wanted the Sox to win. Why do you think all the focus over the years has been how the Sox LOST the World Series, not that the Mets WON the World Series. And Scully and Gargiola wanted the Mets to win according to Boston viewers? How could that even have been possible in the eyes of their defenders? Tim McCarver/Joe Buck often get this now, almost like the media here in New York refuse to acknowledge that there really is anti-New York, anti-coast bias in this country. Please, just stop it allready. Even if you believe Buck and McCarver really don't have an anti-Yankee bias, do you honestly think they are 100% objective? No, everyone has their favorite team, favorite athletes, favorite cities, favorite ideologies (see FOX News, Fair & Balance my ARSE) Maybe thats more of a rant on announcer defenders in the media, but often the announcers themselves will say "Oh no, I'm completely objective, I don't root" All it really is, is disengenious and makes the announcer look like an uncaring robot!

Yancy Street Gang Apr 23 2006 02:51 PM

I can watch a game without caring who wins. Why can't a professional announcer?

Bret Sabermetric Apr 23 2006 06:56 PM

That CPFers like to call me names but are self-righteous in the rare event that I return the favor?

mlbaseballtalk Apr 23 2006 07:30 PM

Probably the worse core group of announcers are the Yankees, Cubs and Braves, in terms of pure lack of objectivity

Nymr83 Apr 23 2006 07:32 PM

The Yankees are without a doubt the worst, i have NEVER heard someone kiss ass to a team as much as Sterling and Waldman do. Nevermind the fact that Sterling forgets the score/inning/number of ball and strikes with alarming frequency.

KC Apr 23 2006 07:38 PM

The White Sox guys are the worst I've heard the last couple of years. No broadcasting team of talking heads approach their yay yay boo boo stuff.

mlbaseballtalk Apr 23 2006 07:39 PM

Yancy Street Gang wrote: I can watch a game without caring who wins. Why can't a professional announcer? I meant in terms of local announcers, specifically those who have been with their respective team for more than a few years. Yes I know I was using national broadcasters in my example, but even there it still is like getting a completly unbiased jury. I mean you might not care who wins in say a Brewers-Pirates game in August but there are little things that you care about and quietly root for. I think its more about expousure to something. Its easy to be uncaring and detatched when you parachute into a game in a sport that isn't covered well by the masses, but its hard broadcast a major league baseball, NFL football game, ect and not come into it with something or someone to care about I'm not even suggesting that it needs to be overt, I'm just suggesting its there, and should be acknowledged, not cast aside with a "How dare you say that about me!" or a "Yeah, well Red Sox fans say that Scully and Garagiola were rooting for the Mets in their broadcast of the 1986 World Series"

Frayed Knot Apr 23 2006 10:06 PM

Saying that announcers *can be* biased in their views isn't the same thing as saying that they *can't NOT be unbiased*.

Bret Sabermetric Apr 23 2006 11:29 PM

Which theme song is worse? The traditional M&MD song with its lyrics that seem written by a 7th grader on his first can of Budweiser ("Nothing can get by 'em, turn it on and try 'em"), or Michael Kay's new theme song, that tries to sound like a Fountains-of-Wayne harmony but with unbelievably inane and pointless lyrics ("Mich-ael Kay--is on the radio--today" Really? Maybe I should stop trying to tune him in on my toaster, thanks for the tip.)

MFS62 Apr 24 2006 06:50 AM

More Joe Morgan stuff. Watching the game from RFK last night. He was talking about how Guillen didn't like hitting there because of the large dimensions. Just then, Guillen hit a liner to deep right center. The announcer went into his "home run call", just to see the ball hit the fence. So, Morgan says (I paraphrase) : "That wind is really blowing in from center." So the director shows us shots of the flags on the center field stands blowing toward home. And Morgan repeats "See, the wind is really blowing in, and it held up that ball". I mention "center field stands" because this is kinda' crucial. RFK is a totally enclosed stadium. And since the ball in question was a low line drive, I doubt the wind had anything to do with the fact that it didn't reach the wall. And what does the wind have to do with the "large" dimensions anyhow? And if it did, didn't Morgan spend enough time as a player to know that winds swirl - to the point that in some stadia, the direction of the wind differs from field-to-field and seating level? He might have said something about that. If the guy has any baseball smarts, he sure doesn't display them when he announces. But then again, Keith said something that puts him on my "insensitive" list the other day. He joins Joe Morgan on it. It had to do with one particular word that I've commented on before. Some folks here called me names when I posted it, so I'm not going to go through the story again. Later

abogdan Apr 24 2006 08:43 AM

]The traditional M&MD song with its lyrics that seem written by a 7th grader on his first can of Budweiser ("Nothing can get by 'em, turn it on and try 'em"), or Michael Kay's new theme song When Jerry Seinfeld appeared on the Steve Somers show for an hour or so last year, he spent a good five minutes making fun of the M&MD theme song. He concentrated on the "they're going at it as hard as they can" line.

Johnny Dickshot Apr 24 2006 10:04 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: Which theme song is worse? The traditional M&MD song with its lyrics that seem written by a 7th grader on his first can of Budweiser ("Nothing can get by 'em, turn it on and try 'em"), or Michael Kay's new theme song, that tries to sound like a Fountains-of-Wayne harmony but with unbelievably inane and pointless lyrics ("Mich-ael Kay--is on the radio--today" Really? Maybe I should stop trying to tune him in on my toaster, thanks for the tip.) I can't be sure but I'd bet the "Michael Kay" song IS Fountains of Wayne.

ABG Apr 24 2006 10:25 AM

KC wrote: The White Sox guys are the worst I've heard the last couple of years. No broadcasting team of talking heads approach their yay yay boo boo stuff. I could not agree more. The seemingly unfathomable amount of dead air they leave is a blessing. And their telecasts are routinely wrong on the number of outs, count, etc

Bret Sabermetric Apr 24 2006 12:19 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I can't be sure but I'd bet the "Michael Kay" song IS Fountains of Wayne. Omigod, really? What on earth would motivate a successful band to record such a lame number? "Hey, fellas, here's a way to associate our unique sound with puerile lyrics, arranged with utter musical ineptness--let's move on this opportunity fast!" I think it's safe to bet your ass Kay didn't throw a suitcase full of money at them, either.

Johnny Dickshot Apr 24 2006 12:22 PM

I think the bad lyrics and obvious rhymes are supposed to come across as ironic and intentionally silly, serving as balance to the moronic-but-serious jingleism of M&MD.

ScarletKnight41 May 22 2006 09:45 PM

KC wrote: The White Sox guys are the worst I've heard the last couple of years. No broadcasting team of talking heads approach their yay yay boo boo stuff. I concur Kase. I'm watching the White Sox right now. I never heard a professional announcing crew refer to the opponents as "the bad guys" before. Unreal!

SteveJRogers May 22 2006 09:53 PM

Johnny Dickshot wrote: I think the bad lyrics and obvious rhymes are supposed to come across as ironic and intentionally silly, serving as balance to the moronic-but-serious jingleism of M&MD. The truely funny thing is, Michael Kay actually LIKES the song and thinks its the PERFECT example of what a theme song should be, and hates what Steven A. Smith has done with his theme song, which is completely non-jingle in every way possible. Basically Kay thinks theme songs should be corny, snappy and filled with lines that the listener will forever be hearing in their heads, and NOT in a good way!

metirish May 22 2006 10:19 PM

Watching YES tonight Kay was explaining how the MFY's got Culter Beane back form the Red Sox, they had taken him off the Yanks on the Rule 5 and then offered him back cos he didn't stay on the 40 man, anyway to make this shor Singelton then piped in that the Sox had to give the MFY's $50 thou after they took him on the Rule 5 and got back $25 hwen they offered him back...Kay then said yeah so they made $25 Grand on that deal, Singelton then said witha straight face that that money helped sign Damon...then said well in a way it did..I nearly shit myself..

DocTee May 22 2006 11:58 PM

From the worldwide leader: http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=gallo/060522&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab4pos3 4. I spent most of the last week in Los Angeles and happened to catch a few Dodgers games on TV, and -- wow -- I feel really bad for Dodgers fans. They have to listen to this play-by-play guy -- Vin something or other -- who is soooo old-fashioned. He doesn't have a bunch of catchphrases he forces into his calls, nor does he try to make himself out to be more important than the action on the field. He just calls the game as he sees it, with no bells or whistles at all. It was really quite annoying, as you no doubt can imagine. Thank God there aren't a lot of announcers like this Vin guy anymore. Quite frankly, I prefer my sports television the modern way: fame-hungry windbags screaming non sequitur catchphrases in the hope of getting more camera time. That's the way it's supposed to be.

Bret Sabermetric May 23 2006 03:16 AM

If I hear "He's hitting a buck and change" to denote someone below the Mendoza line one more time, I'll strangle Scully. Good thing there's thousands of miles between us, I guess.

SteveJRogers May 23 2006 07:59 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: If I hear "He's hitting a buck and change" to denote someone below the Mendoza line one more time, I'll strangle Scully. Good thing there's thousands of miles between us, I guess. Heard a radio host once say that thanks to Vin Scully's call of Koufax's perfecto against the Cubs he can't say 2 and 2 without "...to Harvey Kuenn..." as in the call that usually is heard on great Dodger moments, "...two and two to Harvey Kuenn, one strike away. Sandy into his windup here's the pitch, SWUNG on and missed a PERFECT GAME!" Problem is, thats so long ago people don't even recall Kuenn as being the last manager to take the Brewers into the postseason! I'd love someone to ask him, Who the #($) is Harvey Kuenn and why do you say it in that high pitched voice?

SteveJRogers May 23 2006 08:01 AM

And of course Scully and Gargiola were CLEARY rooting for the better story in the 1986 World Series. That would be the Red Sox over the nationally hated Mets!

MFS62 May 23 2006 09:31 AM

Scully became my inspiration for something he doesn't say. He never uses the term "sacrifice fly" because he personally believes that if a batter is trying to hit the ball as hard as he can (it reached the outfield, didn't it?), he should not be credited with a sacrifice. The batter isn't giving himself up to advance a runner, which is what he believes a sacrifice is all about. Instead, he calls it a "scoring fly". After hearing his logic - never uttering baseball-related words he finds repugnant, I have chosen to do the same. Therefore, I never say, or type three things: The name of the over-the-hill shortstop the Mets received in return for Nolan Ryan. The name of that American League rule (or the player/ person) that allows the substitution of another player in the batting order for a team's pitcher. The nicknames of the two teams that left New York for the West Coast. I only refer to them by their city names. I continue to associate those nicknames with only New York and Brooklyn. It just makes me feel better. Thank you, Vin. Sorry you had to go West with that team. Later

Bret Sabermetric May 23 2006 09:42 AM

SteveJRogers wrote: ="Bret Sabermetric"]If I hear "He's hitting a buck and change" to denote someone below the Mendoza line one more time, I'll strangle Scully. Good thing there's thousands of miles between us, I guess. Heard a radio host once say that thanks to Vin Scully's call of Koufax's perfecto against the Cubs he can't say 2 and 2 without "...to Harvey Kuenn..." as in the call that usually is heard on great Dodger moments, "...two and two to Harvey Kuenn, one strike away. Sandy into his windup here's the pitch, SWUNG on and missed a PERFECT GAME!" Problem is, thats so long ago people don't even recall Kuenn as being the last manager to take the Brewers into the postseason! I'd love someone to ask him, Who the #($) is Harvey Kuenn and why do you say it in that high pitched voice? Who's this Koufax guy?

Frayed Knot May 23 2006 09:47 AM

]And of course Scully and Gargiola were CLEARY rooting for the better story in the 1986 World Series. That would be the Red Sox over the nationally hated Mets! I never bought that. Announcers root for good series so the Scully/Garagiola duo had to be happier than pigs in shit when Game 6 occured. From an outsiders/national P.O.V. it had been a lackluster and not very well played series up to that point. The factor of who wins creating the best "story" is mostly written by those writers and historians who cover the aftermath, not the in-game announcers who, for the most part, couldn't care less who wins so long as it's interesting along the way. Re: "Sac Fly" Major leaguers do hit outfield fly balls w/runners on 3rd and less than 2 outs at rates greater than just what can be explained by random chance implying that there's at least some degree of intent going on; here's a pitch I might not normally swing at in this count but I can at least 'lift' it so here goes ... -- hence the term "Sacrafice" and the rationale for not tallying it against the batter's AVG.

ScarletKnight41 May 23 2006 09:49 AM

We just sat down and watched Game 6, Inning 10 on Sunday. Scully and Garagiola didn't sound biased to us.

SteveJRogers May 23 2006 10:20 AM

Bret Sabermetric wrote: ="SteveJRogers"] Bret Sabermetric wrote: If I hear "He's hitting a buck and change" to denote someone below the Mendoza line one more time, I'll strangle Scully. Good thing there's thousands of miles between us, I guess. Heard a radio host once say that thanks to Vin Scully's call of Koufax's perfecto against the Cubs he can't say 2 and 2 without "...to Harvey Kuenn..." as in the call that usually is heard on great Dodger moments, "...two and two to Harvey Kuenn, one strike away. Sandy into his windup here's the pitch, SWUNG on and missed a PERFECT GAME!" Problem is, thats so long ago people don't even recall Kuenn as being the last manager to take the Brewers into the postseason! I'd love someone to ask him, Who the #($) is Harvey Kuenn and why do you say it in that high pitched voice? Who's this Koufax guy? Friend of Fred

SteveJRogers May 23 2006 11:04 AM

="Frayed Knot"] ]And of course Scully and Gargiola were CLEARY rooting for the better story in the 1986 World Series. That would be the Red Sox over the nationally hated Mets! I never bought that. Announcers root for good series so the Scully/Garagiola duo had to be happier than pigs in shit when Game 6 occured. From an outsiders/national P.O.V. it had been a lackluster and not very well played series up to that point. The factor of who wins creating the best "story" is mostly written by those writers and historians who cover the aftermath, not the in-game announcers who, for the most part, couldn't care less who wins so long as it's interesting along the way. I should have added an SC, but if you asked any Met fan at the time, they'd swear up and down that Vin and Joe were rooting for the Sawks without offering up any evidence. Ditto with Red Sox fans, only the other way around and TECHNICALLY the Sox still were the better story. 64 years of frustration, plus Red Sox Nation wasn't as up front, in your face with their New England Frat Boy Obnoxiousness that permeates Sox Nation since, probably 95-96 While it was the Mets and their fans who were obnoxious, the team everyone hated, hell why do you think the book was named "The Bad Guys Won"

Edgy DC May 23 2006 11:09 AM

As that RBI Baseball thingie seems to demonstrate, Scully comes off as a pro thorugh that inning.

ScarletKnight41 Jun 03 2006 05:04 PM

Lou Piniella is banal, and he sounds as if he's drunk.

Elster88 Jun 03 2006 05:12 PM

Agreed.

Elster88 Jun 03 2006 05:15 PM

Taken from the SNY thread. Oh my god. I will never EVER complain about the memory of Fran Healy again. Click this [url=http://sandiego.padres.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/team/player.jsp?player_id=120536]link[/url], then click on one of the links next to "Piazza's mammoth shot" in the Multimedia section (as time goes on you may have to click on "More multimedia" to find "Piazza's mammoth shot"). And listen to the call. The fake Italian just kind of puts the cherry on top doesn't it? (For another thread...it still amazes me that in this PC-crazed world no one ever makes a fuss about people pretending to speak Italian by mocking the language.) They make Michael Kay sound good and make Chris Russo sound like a HOF broadcaster. _________________________ And of course, it's good to see that Mikey can still hit a ball 600 feet. BTW, Piazza = .256/.329/.466//.795. Not terrible for a 37 year old catcher. He could play for my team. Well, if my catcher wasn't the best hitting catcher in baseball this year.

ScarletKnight41 Jun 03 2006 05:18 PM

Piniella and Al Albert talk about cahnfidence more than Fran ever did. I'd much rather see Fran on the Fox broadcasts than these bozos. They can't even pronounce Ramon Castro's name properly.

Elster88 Jun 03 2006 05:47 PM

I was wondering that myself. But maybe they are right? Isn't the letter a pronounced "ah"? If so, they are saying it right I think.

ScarletKnight41 Jun 03 2006 05:51 PM

If that was the pronunciation, wouldn't our announcers have figured that out by his second season with the team?

Elster88 Jun 03 2006 05:53 PM

I dunno. It did take Keith two months to figure out our regular catcher's last name.

ScarletKnight41 Jun 03 2006 06:11 PM

Oops - it's Kenny Albert broadcasting with Lou. My apologies to Al.

Gwreck Jun 07 2006 07:38 PM

ESPN's Wednesday Night Game must be in a rain delay or something because they cut to bonus coverage of Oakland at Cleveland, and they're using the local cable feed. They turn down the volume, but not all the way, so you can hear the local broadcasters slightly in the background. They then proceed to have Karl Ravech try to do play-by-play, with John Kruk and Harold Reynolds attempting color commentary. Very quickly it is revealed that none of them -- especially Kruk and Reynolds -- are particulary informed about either of these teams. Kruk and Reynolds then go off a tangent talking about Kruk's run at the batting title in 1993 and Harold reminds us that he lost to Gary Sheffield, who "wound up winning the triple crown that year." Really, Harold? The triple crown? I can understand getting the batting title wrong maybe, but were you serious?

Edgy DC Jun 07 2006 07:47 PM Edited 1 time(s), most recently on Jun 07 2006 10:09 PM

I'm pretty sure Shef won the Preakness and the Belmont that year. I need to check on the Kentucky Derby. Those Piazza clips were funny, the audio ones also. He's looking like he's carrying a few more pounds maybe.

Elster88 Jun 07 2006 08:18 PM

Harold Reynolds is a moron. Just so ya know.

SteveJRogers Jun 07 2006 08:28 PM

Elster88 wrote: Harold Reynolds is a moron. Just so ya know. Same guy that still thought the Mets version of a gold watch for Bob Murphy's retirement was a slap in the face of Jackie Robinson because it still APPEARED that the Mets were retiring #42 in Murph's honor, so yes he does deserve a YOUR A MORON!

Frayed Knot Jun 07 2006 09:27 PM

ESPN was sked to do the NYY/Bost game tonight. That one was obviously (for anyone here) rained out so that's why they're going to "bonus coverage". What I suspect happened is that they have no espn announcers at any of those games and may only have the rights to broadcast parts of those 'extra' games and not have the rights to those local announcers. Hence their studio guys [Ravech/Kruk/Reynolds] are in Conneticut voicing over the imported video while the real ones - the ones who actually could tell you something about the game - are faded into the background. Right now they're showing Cinn/StL - with the Cards getting beat for about the 4th or 5th straight time.

Elster88 Jun 07 2006 09:32 PM

SteveJRogers wrote: YOUR A MORON! *sigh*

MFS62 Jun 08 2006 10:32 AM

ScarletKnight41 wrote: If that was the pronunciation, wouldn't our announcers have figured that out by his second season with the team? Not necessarily. Hall of Fame broadcaster Curt Gowdy pronounced the name of the Cubs' shortstop Lee Elia as Lee "Eli" for as long as Elia was playing. By the time Elia became a manager, Gowdy was no longer broadcasting, so there was no telling how long it would have continued. And long-time early NY radio sportscaster Stan Lomax seemed like he never tried to learn to pronounce Latino names correctly. He referrred to pitcher Camilio Pascual as "KAM-uh-lo PAS-kul" for years. Later

metirish Jun 08 2006 10:36 AM

While watching YES has anyone heard the brutal call on a Giambi home run by Bobby Murcer, I believe it was from last season and every now and then YES will play the clip as a promo, it goes someting like this.... " you look up and it's GONE"...maybe it's the way he says it but you really have to hear it to appreciate just how awful a call it is.

Centerfield Jun 08 2006 12:13 PM

I don't know about his play-by-play, but Murcer is one of the few Yankee announcers I can stand. When he does color, he usually comes up with something interesting to say. He also, in my opinion, isn't blinded by incredible pro-Yankee bias like his partner Kay. No example really comes to mind, but if you listen enough, at some point, Kay will use a superlative to describe something Yankee, and Murcer will calmly point out just how wrong Kay is. In fact, I think I read something a while back that Murcer's frankness may lead to his time getting cut in Yankee broadcasts.

SteveJRogers Jun 08 2006 12:15 PM

Elster88 wrote: ="SteveJRogers"]YOUR A MORON! *sigh* Oops. Note to self, use the preview post function a little more often!

soupcan Jun 08 2006 12:58 PM

="Centerfield"]I don't know about his play-by-play, but Murcer is one of the few Yankee announcers I can stand. When he does color, he usually comes up with something interesting to say. He also, in my opinion, isn't blinded by incredible pro-Yankee bias like his partner Kay. No example really comes to mind, but if you listen enough, at some point, Kay will use a superlative to describe something Yankee, and Murcer will calmly point out just how wrong Kay is. In fact, I think I read something a while back that Murcer's frankness may lead to his time getting cut in Yankee broadcasts. We (or maybe just me) take for granted how lucky we are as Mets fans to have such a good crew doing the radio and TV. I can't stand Kay and Sterling. Maybe because they are the Yankee guys but I truly think that their shtick and hyperbole just gets in the way of the game. Similar to Healy except Healy being an ex-player at least had experience (and of course 'confidence' to draw from). These guys are really just annoying.

Johnny Dickshot Jun 08 2006 01:25 PM

Darling ocasionally makes some rather empty comments, but I think he's earnest and don't mind him all that much after an initial period of "This is gonna suck."

soupcan Jun 08 2006 01:50 PM

I'll take empty coments over rah-rah and 'signature calls' every time.

metirish Jun 08 2006 01:52 PM

I like the SNY team of announcers, just hope that I never see them wearing rally caps again,and Howie is a more than capable replacement for Gary.

Elster88 Jun 08 2006 02:36 PM

="soupcan"] ="Centerfield"]I don't know about his play-by-play, but Murcer is one of the few Yankee announcers I can stand. When he does color, he usually comes up with something interesting to say. He also, in my opinion, isn't blinded by incredible pro-Yankee bias like his partner Kay. No example really comes to mind, but if you listen enough, at some point, Kay will use a superlative to describe something Yankee, and Murcer will calmly point out just how wrong Kay is. In fact, I think I read something a while back that Murcer's frankness may lead to his time getting cut in Yankee broadcasts. We (or maybe just me) take for granted how lucky we are as Mets fans to have such a good crew doing the radio and TV. I can't stand Kay and Sterling. Maybe because they are the Yankee guys but I truly think that their shtick and hyperbole just gets in the way of the game. Similar to Healy except Healy being an ex-player at least had experience (and of course 'confidence' to draw from). These guys are really just annoying. I can't imagine listening to Susan for five minutes, let alone a game. It's like nails-on-a-chalkboard times 1,000. Sterling isn't really originally a Yankee guy though is he? For me the problem is that his vaudeville show is fine for a couple games, but then I'm just sick of it. I figure I'd just be frustrated and begging for a regular baseball broadcast within a week.

Frayed Knot Jun 08 2006 02:47 PM

"Sterling isn't really originally a Yankee guy though is he? " Nah, he's been around since forever. He was in Atlanta for a decade or so: Braves plus Hawks basketball. Hell, he may have even done Atlanta Flames hockey for all I know. He also did Islander radio in their early days. In fact; Yankees Win, Yankees Win!' has the same cadence as, 'Islander Goal, Islander Goal' did back in the day. I also used to hear him doing a sports talk radio show (back before dedicated sports stations) on WMCA. He used to play the very ascerbic, 'Get off the phone, you dont' know what you're talking about!!' type of guy.

ScarletKnight41 Jun 08 2006 02:49 PM

OMG - my grandfather used to call into those shows constantly.

MFS62 Jun 08 2006 02:53 PM

You can like Sterling or hate him, depending on whether or not you root for the team he's announcing for. I liked him when he did the Nets games when they were in the ABA. In fact, he was the one who originally coined the phrase "Downtown" for a three point shot. Marv Albert stole that phrase and made it famous. Didn't remember that he did Islander games, too. Another announcer for an ABA team was Bob Costas, who did the games for the Spirit of St. Louis. Later

Johnny Dickshot Jun 08 2006 02:58 PM

I kinda like Sterling. (ducks)

metirish Jun 08 2006 03:05 PM

I tell you what I liked last season, when Wladman joined Cohen in the Mets radio booth and Rose went with Sterling for a few innings of fun during the Subway series.

Edgy DC Jun 08 2006 03:06 PM

You can't have women in the announcing booth!

MFS62 Jun 08 2006 03:07 PM

metirish wrote: I tell you what I liked last season, when Wladman joined Cohen in the Mets radio booth and Rose went with Sterling for a few innings of fun during the Subway series. Too bad Sterling and Waldmann didn't learn anything from them about how not to be a homer. Later

Frayed Knot Jun 08 2006 04:47 PM

I've always said that Sterling's biggest failing isn't that he spends too much time promoting the home team, it's that he spends it all promoting himself. He can be entertaining at times if you can get through the fact that he treats big moments of the game as merely a set-up for his catch-phrases. The problem lately is that he's making a lot of mistakes on regular action calls; it's like maybe his eyesight is going or something. Or maybe just the strain of having to do all 9 innings of p-b-p every night while having not missed a game since the NYY hired him. Meanwhile, there's a caller to FAN who not only does a dead-on impersonation of him but also calls is as "John from the Bronx" and has conversations with the hosts as his character. Hysterical.

Elster88 Jun 08 2006 04:48 PM

The first few times I heard that guy I thought it acutally was Sterling. Like the guy who does Letterman for Howard Stern's show.

MFS62 Jun 09 2006 12:49 PM

Bob Raissman (NY Daily News) just loves John Sterling: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/col/story/425016p-358531c.html Later

metirish Jun 09 2006 01:20 PM

That article backs up what FK said....the "Melkey way"...that's just terrible.

Frayed Knot Jun 09 2006 01:52 PM

The only difference between what I was saying and what Raissman is, is that occasionally (and w/what seems like inceasing frequency) Sterling would have called Melky's catch as a HR - and then not corrected it until Melky was half way back to the infield with a smile on his face. (and then make the excuse that he doesn't have access to replays)

Elster88 Jun 09 2006 02:03 PM

metirish wrote: That article backs up what FK said....the "Melkey way"...that's just terrible. I had thought that the only original thing about Chris Berman was his nicknames (even though it's annoying now, back in the day I loved hearing things like Jeff Brown Paper Bagwell), but maybe he lifted that from Sterling.

metirish Jun 12 2006 11:29 AM

I have to say I am really enjoying Howie in the TV booth, I like his sense of humour a lot and he's very strong on PbP.

MFS62 Jun 12 2006 11:43 AM

Holy Cow! I had a Scooter flashback this weekend. I was tuning in to WCBS for the weather report and forgot the Yank game was on. And I heard another Sterling moment. Remember when Phil was doing the Yankee games? Every night, he would mention the name(s) or birthday of every person in New Jersey from whom he could get, or just got, a free meal or free round of golf. Well, Stirling was wishing a happy three month birthday to the grandson of somebody we never heard of before. I wonder what he's expecting to get from that guy. Later