I wanted to respond to a comment in this thread without taking it on a further sidetrack, so I’ve brought it here. I’m going to use this space to defend a broadcaster I happen to like, and invite you to do the same. But you’re also welcome to invent reasons to defend broadcasters that everyone hates. After all, there’s no real-world reason to defend Hawk Harrelson, amirite?
Anyone, here’s the comment I wanted to respond to:
Look. I either watch or listen to just about every Indians game. Tom Hamilton is about the most energetic, enthusiastic and fun broadcaster to listen to in all of baseball (possibly all of sports). Also perhaps the snarkiest, but I digress. You can hear his voice in every single weekly baseball highlight show. He’s fantastic; there’s no question about that.
So sure, you stick Rosie (Jim Rosenhaus) in for him during the fourth and fifth inning of every game, and he sounds pretty flat in comparison. But Rosie is actually a fairly accomplished announcer in his own right (in multiple sports, I might add), and I think he does a very good job covering the games. There is no way in hell he can compete with Tom Hamilton, but few can. That doesn’t make him a bad announcer. Plus, he’s a SUPER nice guy in person, so he scores points there. Cut the man some slack!
On a related note, why do so many folks hate Charlie Steiner? I really enjoy him calling games, too.
I never understood the hate Joe Buck gets in calling NFL games. He never came across to me as biased. He always seemed careful and diplomatic in criticizing a particular team or individual. Green Bay fans can’t stand him, but they wear cheese on their heads.
I’ll go a way back and partially defend Howard Cosell. Now Howard was terrible calling baseball & football but whenever I hear a classic fight from the 70s I’m reminded that Cosell was great with Boxing and extremely passionate about the sport. Basically if this man had stuck to Boxing I think he would have been remembered fondly.
I’m a die-hard Packer fan (I LIKE my cheesehead thankyouverymuch!) and I came in here to say Joe Buck. All announcers have a story they want to tell and for whatever reason Joe is excoriated for his.
Chris Collinsworth was on a podcast one time and said that everyone thinks the announcers hate their team, I guess Joe is just the one who gets the most attention for the “hate”
I almost said in that other thread that maybe Hamilton is just so good the drop off seems like more than it is. But nah, I actually thought this Rosenhaus guy was a rookie fresh out of broadcast school or something. As I said, Hamilton can pull off the one man show, but Rosie is in desperate need of a color commentator. By the way, do you know him personally?
Regarding Charley Steiner, I never had a strong opinion one way or the other as a play by play announcer. But I know a local sports radio guy who hates him. Apparently Charley hosted a sports radio talk show and was awful. Incompetent to the point where if a scheduled call-in guest had to cancel, Charley just played music for a segment rather than try to fill the time.
As for defending someone, I’ll say that Joe Morgan was not the best ever baseball color commentator, but not as bad as a lot of people made him out to be. I heard a lot of criticism about him talking too much about his own career and how things were when he played and comparing players to those of his era. But for me, that’s fine. Tell me how *you * or some other Hall of Famer from your era would have made the play differently. I had no problem with that. Now, Joe was a little stale and sometimes made the same point over and over, and sometimes said things awkwardly (not nearly as bad as McCarver, though), but I could live with him.
You don’t want Rosie to have a color person, trust me. On the days that Tom Hamilton is on vacation and Rosie does the entire broadcast, they usually give him a color person. It’s generally…not good.
I don’t know him personally. I got to meet him when I was on the field pre-game for the Dodgers/Indians match-up back in 2014 (non-stealth brag: when I threw out the first pitch). We chatted for maybe three minutes because he was really caught off guard that a Dodger fan knew who he was. We talked about how I became and Indians fan, and about the team in general. I ran into him again a few weeks ago when I was taking a public tour of Progressive Field, and he literally just said “Hello.” That’s been the extent of our interactions.
I am the rare one with the good taste to prefer Rosenhaus to Hamilton. Hamilton’s snarkiness, and full of himself know-it-all-ism annoy me to no end. Rosie gives it to me straight without too many of his own biased opinions.
I wouldn’t go so far as to say I prefer Rosie, but Mr. Hamilton does get a bit full of himself now and again. Especially when he starts talking about PEDs. Even when I agree with him in principle, he’s so damn self-righteous about it that I don’t really want to be on his side.
But listening to Hammy is one of the things that helped me fall in love with the team to begin with, so I guess you take the bad with the good.
I’ve disliked Joe Buck ever since his call of the Randy Moss “moon”, but I’ve since seen enough stuff of him out-of-the-booth that shows he’s a pretty self-aware, cool guy. I find his overall announcing eh.
Collinsworth I can’t stand just because he’s so boring. Him and Al Michaels have a way of making the Sunday Night came (usually the best matchup of the week) feel underwhelming.
I don’t hear about him as much now that he’s not doing NFL or west coast college stuff, but I always loved Gus Johnson. Really made the game feel more exciting (and for some reason, seemed like he had a lot of crazy games). But I know lots of people thought he was too over-the-top.
Bob Costas is a bit too full of himself and a bit too quick with the smarminess, absolutely. But he knows his stuff and broadcasts as smoothly and competently as anyone in the business. I don’t mind him at all.
I agree except for the last fight he announced, Larry Holmes vs. Randall Cobb. We all got the point, mismatch. Big deal, he didn’t mind so much with plenty of other mismatches.
First of all, I’m delighted to be having a discussion of the Indians’ 2nd string radio broadcast guy. And your point about Rosie giving it straight without opinion (or anything else) is exactly my problem. He is literally just telling you what happened with no peripheral information.
The pitch…ball outside.
(20 seconds of silence)
Tomlin sets. Delivers. In there for a strike.
(20 seconds of silence)
etc.
I’m alone in liking Hawk. He’s a homer and it’s fine with me. I just wish WGN hadn’t given up on carrying sports as I get to hear him a lot less now.
The thing I hate about Buck is that for the most part, he does the PA for the All Star and post season MLB games. It’s probably something Fox insists on (but why?). I’d prefer to hear the local PA guy do it, Buck is unfit to carry Bob Sheppard’s microphone. At least they got rid of that human root canal, Tim McCarver.
There hasn’t been a good MLB national broadcast team since Garagiola and Kubek. The best local team (of the few I have heard) was Al Kaline and George Kell.
John Sterling was OK maybe 15 years ago, but he is so far past his expiration date it is sad, truly sad now. So I’ll say in the mid 90s the radio team of Sterling and Michael Kay was better than the TV crews of the time and pretty enjoyable to listen to. They kept each other in check and Sterling was still fairly sharp.
I don’t hate Hawk, either. I don’t have a problem with the local guy being a homer. And he’s got some quotable lines that I like to use in every day situations.
