I’ve got the Mets-Cards game on TV, and for some reason the announcers aren’t coming through. All I can hear is the sounds of the stadium (faintly) and the balls/bats/gloves and the umpire’s calls (less faintly). It’s pretty nice not to hear Hrabosky and what’s-'is-name yammering on. I’d like this to happen more frequently.
The Bud commercials are coming through just fine. 
The quality of sports announcing - especially color commentary - is appalling in most cases, for what reason I don’t really understand.
The local Blue Jays broadcasts are usually on Rogers Sportsnet, where the color man is Pat Tabler. In years of listening to him I have never heard him provide any insightful commentary; it’s all “they really need a base hit right here.”
My impression from message boards and the opinions of other Jay fans is that Tabler is despised, so why they keep him I do not understand. Insightful commentary is not impossible. They used to have Darrin Fletcher do color work, and he was great. Two or three times a game he would alert the viewer to something that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise. He’d tell you how Shlabotnik was stepping too far towards third on his swing this year, and that’s why he was striking out so much, and they’d run some tape to prove it, and by Christ, he’d always be right. Your understanding of the game was always enhanced. Another guy who used to do this on national TV in the USA was Al Leiter. He’d only say about eleven things during the entire ballgame, and all of them would be genuinely informative insights from a professional in the field.
When you think about it, that’s the one area of understanding baseball that I, the dedicated fan, need MOST. I know the stats and the players and their history as well as the announcers do. I understand the strategy of baseball; I don’t need them to explain a double switch. What I don’t know anywhere near as well as someone like Darrin Fletcher are the physical nuances of the game; why a hitter is doing well or poorly, why a pitcher is particular ill- or well-suited to face a certain hitter, why the fielder had trouble executing the previous play. Darrin Fletcher (or Al Leiter) has forgotten more about that than I’ll ever know. So when they interject with insight about that sort of thing its fascinating to me.
But for some reason the Leiters and Fletchers get pushed aside for guys like Tabler and Joe Morgan, who talk at enormous length and never provide ANY insights; they talk three times as much, and say nothing.
Back in the 80s, NBC broadcast a Jets game without announcers. I really didn’t miss them – the screen told you all you needed to know.
NBC said they learned from the game that there were indeed times when the announcers should remain silent. They used it, for instance, when someone scored a dramatic touchdown – you saw the players and fans going crazy.
However, they seem to have creeped back into “all talk all the time.”
Yes!
Especially the national broadcasts. McCarver and Morgan are the two worst.
I can’t stand any commentating other than Tom Hamilton on WTAM (radio) in Cleveland. Even when Mike Hegan takes an inning, things just seem “wrong.” I like Hegan’s insight as a former player, since Hamilton never played…but Hamilton just has this certain flow that makes every single game enjoyable.
When I have to hear TV announcers, I get crabby. The 2007 playoffs were murder. Since there was a 10-second radio-to-tv delay, I had to “tough it out” and listen to those national announcers. Aaaack!
…and, Pat Tabler! Ha! (Former Indian)
If you think sports announcers are bad when they have something to talk about, try listening when they have nothing to talk about.
I like the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. I loathe the endless prattle of inanity that accompanies it on America television. It’s music, and dancing, and spectacle, and flashing lights, and marching athletes; it’s all planned out in advance and there’s really nothing you can say that’s going to add to what I’m watching. That doesn’t stop them. I swear, if they make the Djibouti pun again this year, I will find the bastard who does it and cut out his tongue with a javelin. At least I’ll be spared from Katie Couric this time.
You think it’s bad in baseball? Try dealing with Tony Kornheiser blabbering on during Monday Night Football. Guy was worse than worthless - he detracted from the game by commenting on things not at all related to the game - what a coach was wearing, or a cute cheerleader, or the brouhaha surrounding Tony Romo’s dating life. Awful.
Only two sportscasters have ever been so awful, so annoying, so repulsive that I turned down the sound or turned off the game entirely- Howard Cosell and Dennis Miller.
The vast majority aren’t bad- they’re just unnecessary.
I saw that experimental Jets game that was broadcast without commentary, and it drove home for me that a good play-by-play man is essential. I have no desire to watch sports without any commentary at all.
But a color man is a luxury. He’s great if he can either entertain me or teach me something about the game that I didn’t know or wouldn’t have noticed on my own. Practically NONE of the analysts I see regularly ever does either of those things.
I LIKE Phil Simms and Troy Aikman just fine. They’re smart guys, likable guys, and they know way more about football than I do. Neither is a horrible broadcaster, neither makes me want to throw a brick at my TV… but neither has ever told me anything that wasn’t obvious about a play that just happened. Neither has ever cracked me up with a funny anecdote about his playing days.
So, why do networks pay these guys a fortune to do something a kid fresh out of broadcasting school could do just as well?
Dennis Miller was truly awful.
The CFL experimented with some games a few years ago without commentators, just crowd noise during the game and it wasn’t that bad (for a CFL game anyway).
I couldn’t agree more with RickJay about the comparison between Darrin Fletcher and Pat Tabler. I also like Rance Mulliniks as a commentator although he’s not quite as good as Fletcher. A while back, possibly last season, they had Jesse Barfield in the booth deconstructing some of the batters styles and he was incredible, very insightful comments on small adjustments the hitters were making as they prepared to swing or set their feet, he didn’t use a lot of words but he said a lot.
The day will come when it’ll be an option…you’ll be able to pick what kind of audio feed you’d like to listen to. When that day comes, the only time I’ll turn on the annoncers is when there is a serious “what the hell just happened there?” moment.
I think the group that has done and does the Braves games is pretty good, with two small problems, Sciambi (sp?) and Chip Caray both sometimes slip into an exaggerated radio voice for a sentence or two. I wanna send them tapes of Phil Hartman on News Radio. I like Joe Simpson, Pete Van Weiren and Skip Caray. I liked Don Sutton before he went to Washington. All four of those guys add something to the ball game but they don’t draw attention from the game to themselves. I agree on Joe Morgan (a great player, a nice guy) and Tim Mc Carver (a self-important ass). Joe reminds me of some of the guys that ESPN has in studio as ex-player/experts, who babble and stammer and have no grasp pf the language (Eric Harris?), and Tim is just an ass.
We’re getting closer. MLB on DTV has two feeds for most games, so you can listen to the home or away broadcasters (also HD or SD (SD gives some additional menus for other scores, box score, etc) for up to 4 channels for one game). If you’ve ever had to listen to the WhiteSox guys because you have no choice - you WILL welcome this option. Sometimes I’ll watch the SD feed just to avoid certain announcers.
I’ve definitely done this in the past for NY Giants games. Yes, I’d prefer watching the network HD feed, but if I have to watch WOR in SD in order to hear Bob Papa calling the game, so be it.
Yes, yes, a thousand times yes! Hawk Harrelson has got to be the worst baseball announcer out there.
I generally agree with this sentiment, with the exception of Walt “Cylde” Frazier, who is a god among men and should be the official announcer of all important sporting events.
If they did shut up, who the hell would we argue with? 
I have a somewhat interesting story about Mike Hegan.
In 1969 He played for the Seattle Pilots in their one and only season. A good friend of mine and I entered our parents names in a radio contest called “Home Run for the Money”. (we were 9 years old)
If the announcers drew your name and a player hit a home run in the 7th inning you won some cash.
Long story short, Mike Hegan hit one out for my buddys parents and they won a couple hundred bucks. It was very exciting for all us neighborhood kids as we were listening live.
They got to met him and have dinner when they picked up their check.
Seeing his name takes me right back to the block on a hot summer evening listening to big league baseball on the radio. heavy sigh
They had Jesse in the booth just a few weeks ago doing that. He’d talk about a batter’s approach, and they’d bring up film of the same batter from 2007 and 2008, and he’d explain what the player was doing worse or better.
It was fantastic.
On the what? I think you may be in the wrong thread.
Speaking of the what, I enjoy John Sterling & Susyn Waldman calling the Yankees on WCBS. Sterling is terse and easy to follow, with kind of an old-school delivery. Waldman is informed and to the point, and it’s nice having a female voice as part of such a male institution.
Ya wooshed me there Dougie. I have no idea what you are talking about.