Comments on: Playoff baseball, 10/12

By: missbaseball9

missbaseball9 — Sat, 14 Oct 2006 19:08:15 +0000

That’s why Fox calls one of its other tributaries FSN-short for Fox Sucks Network. As soon as I figure out which team has the best former Mariners on it I’ll forecast who will win the Series. And what is this about no wild card team (even with the best record) having home field advantage until the Series? That stinks, but then this whole whoever wins the All Star game gets WS homefield advantage stinks too, but that figures since it was Selig who came up with it. And now he has come up with this pea-brained idea about making it harder on the wild card teams throughout the playoffs by giving them fewer (!) home games–who elected him anyway?

By: msb

msb — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 21:32:55 +0000

#65– and FWIW, Gonzo has prior experience– this is the 4th year he’s done post-season baseball for ESPN …

By: DKJ

DKJ — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 19:27:39 +0000

I personally cut Gonzo some slack. I don’t see him so much as a color commentator, but as a recent participant in the game. In fact, his obvious deficiencies are refreshing – broadcast acumen/slickness, wit/egotism – I am offering two sides of a couple of coins so you catch my drift.

It’s pretty neat to hear from a guy who has actually faced either the crafty Glavine or the strangely resurgent Jeff Weaver. It’s like one of the programs on the [Learn Nothing From] History Channel when they look into an “engineering marvel.” They will ask an engineer – and you guys are out there, you know what that means in terms of pozazz – but who can give you the best, most relevant information? Leave the sex appeal and god-voice, and maybe even the stat-smarts to the broadcasters.

By: Mat

Mat — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 18:30:06 +0000

I dunno what trash heap they pulled Luis Gonzalez out of to do such a big series with no prior experience.

I think they call that particular trash heap the Arizona Diamondbacks.

By: Mr. Egaas

Mr. Egaas — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 18:13:29 +0000

I dunno what trash heap they pulled Luis Gonzalez out of to do such a big series with no prior experience.

By: Mat

Mat — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:57:53 +0000

Iâ€™d rather hear Orel than any other of the in-game â€œanalystsâ€

I’d forgotten about his work in the Cards/Padres series. He was solid and probably the best color commentator I’ve heard these playoffs.

I forget whether or not I liked Leiter much when he was in the booth for a bit. I do remember that he didn’t make me want to turn the sound off, so that’s better than most of the choices out there.

By: Evan

Evan — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 17:38:37 +0000

Iâ€™d rather hear Orel than any other of the in-game â€œanalystsâ€

Al Leiter. In fact, a Bob Costas/Al Leiter tandem would be great.

Or, we could just get back the old Expos broadcast crew of Dan Schulman and Ken Singleton. That was a wonderful pairing.

By: metz123

metz123 — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 16:14:47 +0000

Soup’s not bad. He’s significantly better than FireJoeMorgan and Tim “let me continue beating this dead horse” McCarver.

By: DKJ

DKJ — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:51:16 +0000

I enjoy “Soup” Dave Campbell on radio. He is not the Dizzy Dean of my childhood, but I could picture him having an intelligent and entertaining conversation with Diz. It’s the tone of voice as much as the content of his comments.

Of course, I doubt if Diz would have been hep to the stat geek phenomenon, but could we agree to forgive him based on his HOF, 30-game winner, baseball is actually FUN attitude?

By: Safeco Hobo

Safeco Hobo — Fri, 13 Oct 2006 14:27:04 +0000

Does anyone remeber a few years back (i think 2003) when FSN experimented with the broadcast by making minor tweaks during the game? Things like staying with one camera angle, or removing the score/count on the top of the screen for a half inning. Most of them were pointless or frustrating but the one i appreciated the most was when they turned up the field mics and turned off Rizzs. Made it difficult to follow if you weren’t paying 100% attention, but overall was a better experience.

So i guess i would say, no play by play is better than bad play by play.