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Baseball Confession PART 2
2004-09-20 19:28
by Scott Long

(see prior entry, before reading this)

From looking at my post on Vin Scully, most of the comments pro-Scully were from people who grew up listening to him. I can respect that as an announcer you listen to from your youth they can become like a member of the family, so I can't tell you you're wrong. There are college sports announcers who truly stink, but if they're your guy, they seem almost like listening to your Grandpa and you want to defend them with your life.

As brought up in the comments, one thing that bothers me about Scully is that he does the whole game by himself. I like the conversational element of baseball broadcasting.

No broadcaster in today's game seems to be more of a divisive force than Hawk Harrelson. I would say that as a White Sox fan, he has his positives and negatives. I hate how he bashes Sabremetrics. I can see how his catch-phrases could grate on casual fans, but if you listen to him on a regular basis, I find that they become part of the game for you. The nickname element brought up in the comments section is a real plus to me, as it gives modern baseball a link to the past history of the game. The best thing Hawk does is tell stories about players from the 60's and 70's he played with, giving some great info on that time period.
Once again, though, I think it's hard to be objective about your favorite teams broadcaster, if he has been there for a long time.

Another person brought up a great exchange between White Sox announcers Ed Farmer and John Rooney. If you haven't listened to these guys before, they really bring an intellectual style to the game. I believe Farmer is the best radio color man I've ever heard, as he gives a lot of great info, as he used to be a scout, plus really breaks down the art of pitching, as he was a former Big League hurler. Farmer has a Dennis Miller style of dry wit that I appreciate most of all.

The two announcers I would love to see paired together is Joe Buck and Rick Sutcliffe.
Buck is smart and very funny, while still knowing how to pull back and let the moment happen. (I personally think he's way better than his dad, who I actually liked doing MNFootball on radio, better than when he did KMOX baseball)
Sutcliffe is sensational, providing great insight and at the same time, not being afraid to call out players who are not producing.

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