Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
scott@scottlongonline.com
One of the things that makes me crazy are bloggers who rip sports announcers, without saying who they think are actually good. I would agree that other sports seem to have more quality of depth in their booths, but I would suggest that a large reason behind this is that baseball is the toughest sport to broadcast. Considering how much slower the action is than the other Big 3 team sports, baseball broadcasters can't rely on emotion to help push the telecast along. Statistics and strategy are a much larger part of the fabric of the game than they are in other sports broadcasts.
So here is your assignment. I want you to list your current Top 3 play-by-play men, your Top 3 analysts, and the ultimate broadcasting duo you would hire for your World Series telecast. Keep in mind that this is for a national telecast. Some guys are good doing a local game, but wouldn't translate well to a national audience. The only rule I have is that you can't use your own team's broadcasters. (So if you are Dodgers fan, no Vin Scully or if you are Yankees fan, no Slobberin' Susan Waldman.) Since it seems like a universal notion among the blogging universe that every broadcaster Fox, ESPN, or TBS uses is dismal, I want to see who you would employ. Time for all the haters to put their balls on the line. I will post my current list on Friday, as I will wait to take the shrapnel until then. So you have an example of what I'm looking for, I will post my all-time Top 3 in each category. You can list your all-time list as well, but I'm most interested in who you would hire now.
Top 3 All-Time Play by Play Men
Top 3 Analysts
Ultimate Duo
Gowdy had the voice of the big event, when you grew up in the 70's. Game 6 of the 1975 World Series between the Reds and Red Sox is the ultimate baseball game for many. During this historic game, the broadcasters were just as good as the action, with Gowdy and Kubek the maestros behind the mic. It's been a long-time since he did baseball play-by-play, but Costas brought a modern style to the game, while still maintaining a baseball purist attitude. Uecker is seen by some as a bit of a buffoon from pitching Miller Lite or playing the part of Harry Doyle, but he is really a joy to listen to do a game.
Many of you don't remember the former Yankee shortstop Kubek's days as a broadcaster, but he was the first ex-jock I ever heard who wasn't afraid to be honest with his criticism. I'm partial to pitchers as analysts. Stone and Drysdale are/were consistently strong with their takes on what players were doing on the field, despite it putting them occasionally in the team's doghouse they worked for.
From 1983 to 1989, Costas and Kubek were one of the 2 broadcast teams that did the Saturday afternoon NBC Game of the Week. They played off each other beautifully, as they brought a real intelligence to the game, without the sing-songy vocal inflection that so many baseball broadcasters use.
(Note: my list is post-1974, because I don't remember much before then.)
Doing this all off the cuff... ask me in a week and you may get completely different lists.
1. Vin Scully
2. Jon Miller
3. Bob Uecker -- he really is fantastic once you get him off the big networks
1. Joe Torre
2. Orel Hershiser
3. Don Sutton
(Drysdale was good, too, but here I will observe the no-Dodger-broadcasters rule)
Ultimate duo: Vin Scully and Marcel Marceau
I would really like to have heard more of Denny Matthews, Herb Carneal, and Harry Kalas, as I'm mostly unfamiliar with them although they have really good reputations.
Second team: Kalas and Brenly
Third team: Trupiano and Santo (Trupiano is out of work, as far as I know--he was a Red Sox announcer up until spring of this year, when he was unceremoniously and coldly canned; this choice, which may seem ridiculous to some, is my way of protesting the trend toward pairing young corporate-smooth play-by-players with pompous know-it-all ex-big-leaguers. When you listen to the dying breed guys like Trup and Santo it helps you remember baseball is supposed to be fun. Uecker would work well in this team, too.)
2) Mel Allen
3) Curt Gowdy
Murphy was the voice of my youth. Growing up in upstate New York I wasn't close to any major league team but I could pick up Met's games on my radio. Even though I wasn't a Met's fan one of the best memories of my childhood is laying in the grass on a summer day listening to Murphy call the game. Allen was a great substitute when all I could get was a Yankee's game.
I don't really like analysts during a game, especially on radio. But after watching this year's playoffs, the first one I hear point out that calling for a sac bunt, with anyone other than a pitcher, with no score in the second inning is ridiculously stupid will become my favorite.
1. Vin Scully
2. Ned Martin (Red Sox)
3. Curt Gowdy
Top 3 Analysts
1. Steve Stone (mostly Cubs)
2. Bill White (Yankees)
3. Tony Kubek/Joe Garagiola (did they ever do a 3-man booth with Vin Scully?)
Ultimate Duos
1. Vin Scully & Joe Garagiola (NBC 70s)
2. Ned Martin and Bill White (combo local TV of my youth)
3. Keith Jackson & Howard Cosell (not great baseball announcers but great TV)
All-Time PBP. Numbers 1 and 3 have been heard extensively on tape.
1. Mel Allen: The very best combination of energy and being into the game outside of the city of Los Angeles. Somehow, those two key facets of broadcasting have escaped the modern announcer.
2. Early Bob Costas
3. Red Barber: How good was the early Costas? I give him the nod over Barber.
Top 3 Analysts
1. Al Leiter: I heard him a few years ago and was blown away. I can't understand why the networks stopped using him.
2. Jeff Torborg: His radio work with Scully was very strong though he wasn't controversial enough, meaning he wasn't controversial at all.
3. Joe Torre: I was really hoping I wouldn't get beat on this pick. Thanks, Eric. Torre with the Angels was incredibly good: insightful, unafraid, direct, informative... in fact, switch numbers one and two for me, please? Work beckons...
Leiter has good insights but he needs a deeper voice or something. I suspect he and Michael Kay didn't really get along.
1. Vin Scully - I'm a Dodger fan, but since I live on the east coast all of my experience with Scully (before there were internet broadcasts) was when he was working for NBC, so I see no conflict of interest. Getting to listen to him do Dodger broadcasts is just icing on the cake.
2. Bob Costas and 3. Al Michaels - One of the most annoying things for me about the current state of baseball is that two of the very best baseball announcers work for a network that doesn't carry baseball any more.
Honorable mentions - Jon Miller, Bob Uecker
Analysts:
1. Al Leiter - Like Suffering Bruin, I was very impressed by Leiter when he was doing playoff games for Fox. It is a small sample size, though.
2. Tony Kubek - He really was terrific.
3. Bill White - One bad thing about White becoming President of the NL was that it took him out of the broadcast booth.
Honorable mention - Don Sutton
For a duo, Scully and Kubek would be terrific.
I'll volunteer.
1) Scully
2) Uecker
3) Gary Thorne / Gary Cohen (tie)
Honorable mention: Jerry Coleman
Analyst:
1) pre-1990 McCarver (before he got full of himself)
2) Steve Stone
3) Hershiser
So, I think the main thing Fox/TBS/ESPN ought to do is let one of their better announcers work a playoff game alone. I'd start with
1. Jon Miller without Joe Morgan
2. Bob Costas
3. Bob Uecker
4. Dan Shulman without Dave Campbell
I too have good memories of Jim Kaat as an analyst. Apparently he stopped broadcasting of his own volition.
Hilarious!
7 AFAICT, no one gets along with Kay.
Jon Miller comes next, but I agree with dzzrtRatt that he needs to work alone.
In general, any baseball announcer does a better job if he announces as if he is on the radio while doing a TV broadcast.
I have no need for analysts.
PBP:
1. Vin Scully
2. Jon Miller
3a. Bob Uecker
3b. Jon "Boog" Sciambi, the best of the younger generation
Analyst:
My list would be Bill White, Ken Singleton, and Jim Kaat, but as a Yankee fan, I will observe Scott's rule. Singleton is fantastic. There was a Yanks-Os game in 2005 that Singleton called by himself (Michael Kay was unexpectedly absent, his mom was sick IIRC). That was my favorite broadcast since the Scooter retired. Just superb.
That said here are my top three Play by Play guys:
1) Miller
2) Scully
3) Costas
As for color, I think most of them are terrible.
Here are three that aren't perfect but whom I like for various reasons:
1) Al Leiter
2) Orel
3) Timmy Mac - He just amuses the hell out of me.
...yeah I got nothing.
1. Vinny
2. Dick Ensberg(Maybe he was better as the Rams announcer but I liked him)
3. Bob Costas
Color
I don't like any color analysts.
I dislike multiple people in the booth.
Scully and Garagiola worked together for most of the world series I watched growing up and I was never as big of a fan of them together, as I was the backup team for NBC of Kubek and Costas. I think DXMachina really nails the point of how sad it is that 2 of the all-time best announcers, Costas and Michaels haven't done baseball in years, even though it was the sport they initially built their names on. I would have rated Michaels 4th on my play by play list.
I grew up in Des Moines, which was smack between KC and Minneapolis. The announcers were Denny Matthews and Herb Carneal. I think Matthews is really good, I thought Carneal sucked. Of the traditional guys, I rate them this way.
1. Ernie Harwell
2. Harry Kalas
3. Harry Caray (before 1990)
4. Jack Buck
I'm not trying to create a complete shitstorm here, so let me reiterate that I believe Vin Scully is the best I've heard in a booth by himself, but it just isn't the way I like to hear a game announced. I like the give and take between 2 people, like overhearing a conversation.
The talk about Bob Costas reminds me of the story about him in Terry Pluto's oral history of the ABA, Loose Balls (one of the greatest sports books ever): Costas was really young when he started broadcasting for the Spirits of St. Louis, 18 or 19, I think. Anyway, the team was frittering away a 4th-quarter lead the night after they'd lost a game they'd been leading comfortably for most of the way. Costas said into a live mike: "They really want to avoid last night's blow job."
His story about Marvin Bad News Barnes not wanting to get on the team flight because it was leaving on East Coast time and touching down in Central time making it seem like a time machine to Marvin is as classic of a sports story as I've ever heard.
No offense, but it appears like you ARE trying to create a shitstorm with the majority of your blog entries.
Now if you want to read a shitstorm about Vin, check out this link.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writers/richard_deitsch/09/17/lange.qa/index.html
On the radio, I always enjoyed Bobby Murphy when he was paired with Gary Thorne. On the Yankee side, I really enjoyed Tommy Hutton with Hank Greenwald, and thought the Sterling/Jay Johnstone duo was very entertaining. Of course, the Scooter and Bill White were also great together, along with Frank Messer, Spencer Ross and others.
Los Angeles in the 1970's and early 80's was spoiled rotten with broadcasting talent: Scully with the Dodgers, Dick Engerg calling the Angels and UCLA basketball and Chick Hearn with the Lakers. All three men have been called the "best" at one time or another. It was fun.
1. Vin.
Kind of precipitous falloff from there, but I do like Sean McDonough and Don Orsillo.
Color:
Jim Deshaises is my favorite right now. Doesn't fall back on cliches, and is up to speed on the new science of baseball.
Play by play: Costas, Michaels, Uecker
Analyst: Sutton, Leiter, Torre, Hershiser
Any pairing would be ok for me, but the farther the left the better, so my pairing is Costas/Sutton.
I am old enough to remember watching the Gowdy/Kubek team on NBC's Game of the Week in the early 1970s, before Joe Garagiola came (back?) aboard the NBC team, but at that age I was not listening to announcers with a critical ear. I do remember being impressed with Kubek later, with Costas.
I would pick Harwell over Scully because he was such a generous partner with whomever he did the games with. Scully is amazing by himself, but as I've outlined that is not the way I grew up listening to the game, so it seems incomplete. If I grew up in LA listening to the Dodgers broadcasts, I'm sure I would have the same hero worship that DT contributors offer up.
Oh and to the Frightened Mallard (23), if I had a list that had Joe Morgan and Frank Thomas as my favs...that would be a joke.
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