A Bad Third Place

[DOUGHBOYS]

Two weeks into the season. Man, I love baseball.
What a grand game.
I grew up listening to the San Francisco Giants on radio. Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons were the broadcasters.
Hodges of "THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!" fame.

I got all the information I needed in each broadcast.
How Willie McCovey owned Don Drysdale.
How Clay Dalrymple owned Juan Marichal.
How Sandy Koufax owned the National League.
All of us, probably have a soft spot for the broadcasters we grew up with.
I 'cheated' and on clear nights, I would find the Dodgers with a lot of crackly static and that smooth voice of Vin Scully.
As a kid, I hated the Dodgers, but I could not bring myself to hate Vin Scully.
I wanted to. He always said such glowing things about a team disliked, but the truth was, I loved listening to that guy.

For the most part, the age of those broadcasters has passed.
Now, we have the glib fellas who are being fed statistics by statisticians. They parlay these stats every night. Stats that even a stats guy like me, for the most part, do not care about.
They work on their verbs.
A ball can be "ripped" "tattooed" "crushed" "rocketed", but the ball can never be hit while using those same verbs in the same game.

Every ball that is a base hit to the opposite field is now, "A good piece of hitting" .
Why can't a pulled ball be a good piece of hitting?
Any at bat with over six pitches is a good at bat.
Why?
The pitcher throws three balls. The batter misses two pitches and fouls a ball off. All I see from that is three balls and three strikes thrown and the batter is at the plate.
To me, 'a good at bat' is jumping on the first pitch and hitting a home run.
Instead, on the seventh pitch, the batter strikes out, the announcer still gives him credit for 'a good at bat'.
Ugh.

Back in the day, the radio station had control over the broadcasting team. Not the team.
This was more fair.
Broadcasters could be more frank in their comments.
I remember Harry Carey railing at a Manager for using a pinch hitter who ' was horrible'.
Now that the team owns broadcasting rights, broadcasters are more like politicians.
Their pitchers aren't wild. Their pitchers are working on their command.
If a batter is one for 28, they'll remind listeners that the one hit came vs. a left hander and that a southpaw is on the mound.

Now, all 30 teams will 'never give up'
'Have a lot of fight'
'Are not last years club'
'Are truly a team'
'Are not selfish'
These are generic things that broadcasters say now, that didn't have to be said back in the day.

Home broadcasters give their players credit for things WE do and take for granted at our own jobs.
'He shows up every day ready to work'
'He's as reliable as the day is long'
'He gives 100 per cent'

I have the MLB package.
There are broadcasters who are still part of the old school.
The New York Mets. The San Francisco Giants. The Oakland Athletics. The Baltimore Orioles.
I can listen to their broadcasts any time.
On the other hand, I can't stand the Colorado Rockies and the Washington Nationals teams who resemble cheer leading yes men peons who back their team in Trumpian fashion.
If cheer leading, do it in Hawk Harrelson style. Make no bones about it.
Rockies broadcasters will turn an amazing catch by an opponent into a 'nice play' and turn a nice play by a Rockies player into an 'amazing catch'. I really dislike that.

Today's broadcasters are handcuffed more than in the past.
They constantly have to read promo's for their team and advertisers.
A simple seventh inning stretch is now a "Seventh Inning Stretch brought to you by Posturepedic Mattress Company where you can stretch out to your hearts desire!"
In the past, broadcasts were about the listener first. We are now third on that list.
Team
Advertisers
Listeners
Older people can think back and think about broadcasts that placed us first.
Vin Scully once read his grocery list on air. He talked about what he HAD to pick up. If not, his wife would be steamed.
Now, a broadcaster would never do that. And if he did, the list would feature Farmer John hot dogs or some product that would benefit an advertiser.

It's nobody's fault. It's the age we live in. We are besieged by politically correct spin and advertising at every turn.
Baseball broadcasts have succumbed to the same.

[headhunters]

the washington team is the most boring duo in the history of broadcasting- and that is saying a lot.