“He really came to play”
I’d like to add one. I remember one announcer saying that T.J. Ford was the best in the league at getting his team in their offense. In other words no other point guard in the league can dribble the ball up the court and make one pass better than T.J. Ford. Sigh I can dribbe the ball up the court and make one pass as good as any pg in the leauge.
“That’s the first time Diddley Squat State has beaten Random U. since 2001.”
Jeez, it’s only been 3 freakin’ years! If it was 40 years, you’d have something to get excited about, but “first time since” just a few games ago? How about “Diddley Squat won in 2001 and today, while Random U won in 2002 and 2003.”
Tim McCarver is the best announcer at overstating the obvious and getting under my skin since Bill Walton.
That is my hell. Nothing on TV but a channel devoted to watching grass grow, with McCarver and Walton doing play by play, and the mute button is broken. “That blade of grass is the best at supporting the weight of that bug as I’ve ever seen, even Derek Jeter.” “You know, Tim, back in my day as a blade of grass for the legendary coach John Wooden, we didn’t have all the advantages of fancy fertilizers and weed killers that blades of grass have nowadays. Even in the pros, when I won a championship with the equally legendary Dr. Jack Ramsay, it was just us against the elements…”
I love it when the announcers explain simple math to you because you couldn’t possibly do it yourself.
“The Packers are trailing by 4 here so they need to score a touchdown. A field goal would only give them three points and three is less than four so they can’t go for the field goal.”
“Well, that touchdown brings the Colts within 2, so they’ll have to go for the two point conversion. Kicking the extra point just wouldn’t be enough.”
I also hate it when announcers praise players for making boring, conservative decisions because that’s the “smart” thing to do.
“…and Michael Vick, rolling to his right has nobody open and he throws the ball away. And that was the smart thing to do. What a heads up play.”
I don’t want to see Vick make a safe decision, I want to see him take off on one of those dazzling, wild ass runs. That’s what I like about Bret Favre even though I hate the Packers. Favre never does what’s safe. He’s not afraid to thread the ball between three defenders or just heave it 60 yards down field and hope somebody gets it. That’s whatwhat makes the game fun to watch. I hate “safe.”
“They’re going out there to win.”
One my favorites was during the Olympics this year (I can’t remember the event): “This is the first time since 1988 someone has won this event two Olympics in a row!”
OK, so how many Olympics has there been since 1988? A hundred? Two hundred?
And, Trunk, point well taken.
[Richard Jenni]
Announcer: What do you think they’re gonna do?
Color man: I think they’re try to put some points on the board right away.
Announcer: Thank you, Captain Obvious.
[/Richard Jenni]
McCarver is an idiot blowhard. I can’t believe people still pay him to talk about baseball.
He’s still better than Joe Morgan, who I’m convinced is terrified of silence and must break it any way possible, usually by spouting nonsense. Pity, he was such a great player on the greatest team ever.
Agree completely. I don’t think “first time” and “since” belong in the same sentence. Either it’s the first freakin’ time or it isn’t.
This is only slightly less irritating than the Sports Announcer Time-Filling Statement of the Obvious. The other night Joe Morgan, who is one of the worst baseball announcers I’ve ever heard, stated that “the Twins really want to score here.”
No shit! They WANT to score runs? You don’t say!
Oh, I have a good one for this. Joe Theisman was (unbelievably) getting paid to announce a football game:
Other Announcer: Flag on the play…
Theisman: And the offense is clapping, that usually means the penalty’s on the defense…
Thanks pal, even if I had never seen sports before, I might have been able to noodle that one out on my own.
The thing that drives me crazy about race car coverage are the announcers who scream at the top of their lungs whenever one car is passing another. You’d think they’d never seen a pass before in their life.
No wonder they’re in the playoffs, with a brilliant strategy like that. It’s too bad the Yankees are onto it, though.
Bob Gibson was the best ever at berating Tim McCarver when he approached the mound for mid-inning conferences. No, really:
I get the basic premise that bothers you, but getting the ball “downfield” is not the same as moving the ball toward the goal line. “Downfield” has a specific meaning, referring to a long pass. Many teams do quite well without ever bothering to try. The Jets, for instance, have a predominantly horizontal passing game, and are currently undefeated.
So when they say “What it comes down to is, that the team who can get the ball down the field the best will win the game”, they are trying to convey that the running games are a wash, the horizontal passing games are a wash, but whomever has the best success at the vertical passing game will get the edge.
This will be a meaningful comment for the upcoming Jets-Steelers game, for instance, but I agree that it is overused.
That’s nothing. He used to (unbelievably) get paid to quarterback a football game!
And yet by any objective analysis, Jeter is the worst defensive shortstop in recent memory (counting guys who actually played there regularly.)
McCarver is bad, but Morgan is worse.
Even worse, though, is CBC hockey color man Harry Neale. Harry, who is usually drunk by the second intermission, says, at least four times a game, “the Leafs (Harry only ever refers to the Toronto Maple Leafs by the team nickname) really want to score a goal here.” Well, shit me tingle! They WANT to score?
But my favourite Nealism was one night when the Leafs were, as usual, getting whipped like a rented mule, and on one occasion an opposing player was basically handed the puck alone in front of the net and made a nice move and scored. They then showed this event on instant slo-mo replay, and Harry yelled, “Look how long so-and-so has with the puck here… ONETWOTHREEFOURFIVE! (said very fast.) Five whole seconds!!!”
No, Harry, it was slo-mo. You’re supposed to count SLOWER. It was like half a second, dumbass.
I don’t see the problem with “first time since (time X).” How would you word it?
I love when NFL announcers blow a cliche. Case in point, the Steelers-Browns game. There was some extracarricular activity after a play, and they pointed out that these two teams have met something like 100 or more times (which seems dumb on its own, because these teams have not met 100+ times, these two franchises have met…but I digress). The announcer on CBS, trying to inject some insight, offered the gem “Well, you know what they say, familiarity breeds content.” Yeah, they’re so content that they’re taking swings at each other.