July 8, 2007
HOW ABOUT SPENDING SOME OF THAT MONEY IN THE BOOTH, GEORGE:
YANKEE RADIO: THE WORST (PHIL MUSHNICK, July 6, 2007, NY Post)
IT TOOK just two consecutive batters Wednesday to be reminded that being stuck in a car, trying to listen to a Yankees game, is an unsurpassable form of elective torture. At least the prep for a colonoscopy provides the opportunity to read a good book.Wednesday, we tuned in just as Hideki Matsui hit a home run. As later seen on TV, it was a pretty standardized homer, into the lower stands. But John Sterling made it sound as if it would still be going had it not smacked off the Space Shuttle.
Sterling gave it his "It is high! . . . It is far! . . ." treatment, which, as self-serving signature calls go, remains the most ill-serving, just plain stupid one in the annals of attention-starved sportscasting.
Consider that by prematurely implying that so many deep fly balls are home runs, Sterling not only describes all deep flies as exactly the same - line drives are indistinguishable from arching flies - he chooses to go backwards.
A buddy in Idaho listens to baseball on Satellite Radio and we have the MLB audio package, and we were discussing this very problem the other day. While your announcers are entitled to be homers, Mr. Sterling is so deeply biased that the listeners can't have any faith in his descriptions of the game. If a radio play-by-play guy is supposed to be painting a picture for us, he is Picasso, producing ugliness in the service of a lie.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 8, 2007 11:18 AM
Yeah, the radio team is truly awful, not only Sterling, but also Waldman, who has a voice that only Helen Keller could love.
And it doesn't get much better on the tv side, where some of the color guys, like Ken Singleton, are good, but the terrible Michael Kay dominates proceedings.
To be fair though, it's not just the Yankees, almost all the Chicago folks, Sox and Cubs, radio and tv, are poor and Fox telecasts, as well as ESPN, are almost always best viewed with the sound off. There just don't seem to be many decent accouncers out there.
Posted by: Jim in Chicago at July 8, 2007 12:09 PMMethinks the trick to baseball announcing is making sure that baseball announcer has other things to do in the offseason. Drew Goodman (Rockies TV announcer) has an even-keel sort of tone with every gig he does, which includes college football and basketball for FSN.
Posted by: Brad S at July 8, 2007 2:13 PMOne thing the Atlanta Braves have got is a great radio announcer team -- Skip Caray, his son Chip Caray, and Pete Van Wieren. They really know the game. They're also very fair and even-handed in their treatment of the games' progress -- if somebody on the other team makes a great play, or is playing very well, or is otherwise admirable, they don't hesitate to point it out.
When I go to Braves games, I miss the radio broadcast!!
Posted by: Twn at July 8, 2007 3:17 PMSterling needs to lose his breathless 'Yankees win! The....Yankees Win!!!' signature line along with his homerun BS. Very lame. I cringe when I listen. The Yanks fill the stands with a new type of fan: short attention span, video game afficianados. It's become an annoying, very expensive experience to be avoided if one enjoys the subtleties of the game.
Posted by: Hank at July 8, 2007 4:32 PMThe interesting thing about Sterling is that he can be very informative if the Yankees are losing. He will become quite analytic and forensic as he dissects the problems. When the Yankees are winning, however, he is insufferable. Waldman doesn't add any value to the broadcast at all. I preferred Steiner even though he and Sterling hated each other.
Posted by: DW at July 8, 2007 5:10 PM