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The calendar says October and that means one thing for many sports fans -- another World Series is on the horizon. The flip side to the looming ecstasy is another dose of agony disguised as commentary by Tim McCarver and Joe Buck. For fans across the country, no booth tandem inspires more disgusted stabs at the mute button.
Enough with the clichés
These two talking heads are no more hideous than any pair of voices currently collecting paychecks for baseball narration, but since there’s only one World Series, it’s these two we have to stomach while watching baseball’s biggest series.
When’s the last time you watched nine innings on any channel without hearing a sparkling nugget about player X giving “110%” or “leaving it all on the field” for his team?
We get it; the athlete works hard and really wants to win. But these folks get paid to articulate levels of information not available to the general viewer. Can’t we expect something more than cliché after cliché that probably applies to every player on the field?
Insufferable egos
Or what about the donkeys who prattle on about mindless anecdotes while action unfolds underneath them?
I was watching my San Francisco Giants on ESPN while vacationing in North Carolina and the legendary Chris Berman had the play-by-play and spent the evening buying into said legend. I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say he talked over a third of the action, blathering away about some historical moment he’d attended or his favorite Bay Area restaurant or other such nonsense. It was excruciating.
It’s not just baseball
The really bad news is that the problem is more pervasive than one sport.
It’s not just baseball that suffers the blight of verbal diarrhea. In mixed martial arts, a fighter invariably “explodes” on his adversary. I’m no prude, but I can think of several more comfortable phrases that do equal justice to violent exchanges between scantily clad men in a close embrace.
Tune into an NFL or NBA contest and there’s a good chance you’ll hear some ex-player or coach tout the need to “limit the turnovers” or “put points on the board” in order to win. Really? You've gotta be kidding me. That’s the great insight gleaned from years inside the walls of the Promised Land? Yikes.
But have no fear
Confronted by the sad state of broadcasting, there are a couple of duos I’d like to see in the booth. Sure, not all of these are realistic suggestions, but hopefully this will get some momentum for ousting the current batch of commentators. At the very least, they should find a refreshing way to be terrible for entertainment’s sake:
Jon Miller/Harold Reynolds
Miller does the best play-by-play in the business. He knows his stuff, strikes a comfortable balance by mixing hard core baseball with humor, and spoon-feeds it to the listener with his dulcet tones. Reynolds gets to share the booth because he has one of the best technical grasps of the game from the inside, translates it into easily digested bytes and isn’t afraid to acknowledge his own mistakes. The two have very similar approaches from opposite sides of the fence.
Dennis Eckersley/Kirk Gibson
Even if this were a train wreck, it’d be worth it just to hear the hilariously awkward stretch of dead air that would follow any big walk-off home run. Furthermore, it’s not as crazy as it sounds. The Eck has been dandy handling pre- and post-game duties for TBS and Gibby’s a bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, which means he’s got free time.
John Kruk/Chris Farley’s reanimated corpse
If only the technology existed, this would be a can’t-miss solution. The intrinsic entertainment value would be enormous with a twin set of bodies sculpted for physical comedy in addition to each individual’s propensity to make an ass of himself -- Farley intentionally, Krukie not so much. Of course, when the game calls for baseball intellect, Farley better be up to the challenge.
But regardless of your preferred replacements, it’s the perfect time to make a change.
Because even an idiot and a dead guy would be an improvement.
Enough with the clichés
These two talking heads are no more hideous than any pair of voices currently collecting paychecks for baseball narration, but since there’s only one World Series, it’s these two we have to stomach while watching baseball’s biggest series.
When’s the last time you watched nine innings on any channel without hearing a sparkling nugget about player X giving “110%” or “leaving it all on the field” for his team?
We get it; the athlete works hard and really wants to win. But these folks get paid to articulate levels of information not available to the general viewer. Can’t we expect something more than cliché after cliché that probably applies to every player on the field?
Insufferable egos
Or what about the donkeys who prattle on about mindless anecdotes while action unfolds underneath them?
I was watching my San Francisco Giants on ESPN while vacationing in North Carolina and the legendary Chris Berman had the play-by-play and spent the evening buying into said legend. I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say he talked over a third of the action, blathering away about some historical moment he’d attended or his favorite Bay Area restaurant or other such nonsense. It was excruciating.
It’s not just baseball
The really bad news is that the problem is more pervasive than one sport.
It’s not just baseball that suffers the blight of verbal diarrhea. In mixed martial arts, a fighter invariably “explodes” on his adversary. I’m no prude, but I can think of several more comfortable phrases that do equal justice to violent exchanges between scantily clad men in a close embrace.
Tune into an NFL or NBA contest and there’s a good chance you’ll hear some ex-player or coach tout the need to “limit the turnovers” or “put points on the board” in order to win. Really? You've gotta be kidding me. That’s the great insight gleaned from years inside the walls of the Promised Land? Yikes.
But have no fear
Confronted by the sad state of broadcasting, there are a couple of duos I’d like to see in the booth. Sure, not all of these are realistic suggestions, but hopefully this will get some momentum for ousting the current batch of commentators. At the very least, they should find a refreshing way to be terrible for entertainment’s sake:
Jon Miller/Harold Reynolds
Miller does the best play-by-play in the business. He knows his stuff, strikes a comfortable balance by mixing hard core baseball with humor, and spoon-feeds it to the listener with his dulcet tones. Reynolds gets to share the booth because he has one of the best technical grasps of the game from the inside, translates it into easily digested bytes and isn’t afraid to acknowledge his own mistakes. The two have very similar approaches from opposite sides of the fence.
Dennis Eckersley/Kirk Gibson
Even if this were a train wreck, it’d be worth it just to hear the hilariously awkward stretch of dead air that would follow any big walk-off home run. Furthermore, it’s not as crazy as it sounds. The Eck has been dandy handling pre- and post-game duties for TBS and Gibby’s a bench coach for the Arizona Diamondbacks, which means he’s got free time.
John Kruk/Chris Farley’s reanimated corpse
If only the technology existed, this would be a can’t-miss solution. The intrinsic entertainment value would be enormous with a twin set of bodies sculpted for physical comedy in addition to each individual’s propensity to make an ass of himself -- Farley intentionally, Krukie not so much. Of course, when the game calls for baseball intellect, Farley better be up to the challenge.
But regardless of your preferred replacements, it’s the perfect time to make a change.
Because even an idiot and a dead guy would be an improvement.
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