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all the good ones are dead
Chip Caray
Joe Buck
Other (Please explain. No color commentators, please.)
1. Chip Caray
2. Joe Buck
3. Other (Remember: McCarver, Grace, Lyons, and Morgan are considered "color" announcers, not P-B-P.)
These two have several basic problems in common:
1. It's obvious that they don't really like baseball, at all. (Both have admitted it in print!)
2. Patently false and cheesy enthusiasm. (See above.)
3. Neither ever met any dead air that they couldn't fill with an inane comment.
4. Neither has ever learned the simple art of shutting up for that critical second that is required to be correct. For example, if Caray hears the crack of the bat, it's ALWAYS "belted deep." Meanwhile Coco Crisp is diving into short center field to field the ball...
Have fun, folks!
all the good ones are dead
I'd pay money to watch a baseball game with Bill Walton commentating it.
You feature the Phillies in your avatar, and then you say that.
Five minutes of hyperbole over a player, followed by dead silence as he strikes out.
Also,
"Going up there and taking a Zambrano fastball off the cup for your team, that's what being the MVP is all about!"
The first clause can be replaced as needed, because Walton will give you about 1,000 different definitions of "what being the MVP is all about!" during the course of a typical game.
It would be awesome. Frightening, but awesome.
I'll go with Joe Buck, he sucks at everything. He makes me dislike Aikman.
Vin Scully is the best.
With each, it's all about the last names. Would we even know who they are if they weren't the progeny of Jack and Harry?
I'd have to say Joe Buck, but it may be influenced by the fact that Captain Obvious McCarver is his color guy.
I don't even like the Dodgers and I watch their games when in Yuma just for Scully.
I dislike Caray more than Buck, if only because Caray really does say some absolutely inane things while calling games -- not yet to trying to pronounce players' names backwards, but in that realm.
I'm not a big Thom Brennaman fan, either.
I had to say something about this, though:
I call this the Corey Maggette's Defense Principle. A few years ago, watching a Clippers game on league pass, I heard Walton actually say "Corey Maggette is clearly one of the 5 best defenders in the game." Given his willingness to spout that absurdity, I could see these kinds of gems from Walton:
* "There has never been a better defensive left fielder than Manny Ramirez."
* "Brian Roberts is clealry one of the 4 greatest second basemen to ever play in the majors."
* "Nobody throws as hard as Jamie Moyer."
* "Prince Fielder is among the slimmer everyday first basemen ever."
* "Mike Piazza's bat was mediocre; what set him apart from other catchers was his arm."
And as bad as those baseball p-b-p guys are, I'm not sure that there's a worse p-b-p guy on any national broadcast than Brent Musburger on college football. He seems to always be a homer for one side of the game that he calls and he sounds crestfallen if that team somehow comes up short. I suppose it suggests that he cares, but it strikes me as ridiculous.
I think baseball needs more Josh Lewin.
As for the worst, the most irritating baseball viewing experience in my life was watching Chris Berman on the ESPN broadcasts in 2001 when Barry Bonds was chasing the season HR record. The man seemed convinced that the only reason those games were being played was for Bonds to hit homeruns, whether they were playing a pennant race team or not.
I realize that was the reason all of those games were being televised, and probably why most people would watch them, but as a broadcaster you still have some responsibility to call the game with respect to the game. It was as though he felt teams were pitching around Bonds because they were trying to keep him from breaking the record, and not because they were trying to win.
Oh and I know this isn't about color guys but I still have to take this opportunity to say Joe Morgan sucks and has sucked for 20 years.
FTW. QFT. Word.. +1.
(and any other shorthanded way to say that I agree).
The fact that LA was blessed to have Vinny, and Chick Hearn is great. No one called it better than those two at their sport.
I used to loathe Buck, but he's grown on me a bit over the years. He still has a knack for editorializing at weird moments, but I think he's better than a lot of the alternatives.
Michael Kay is my least favorite.
Tom Grieve and Josh Lewin own all.
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