I never understood that
Did the guy think the Sox were in the field??
Dick Enberg used to be my favorite.
Angels baseball, UCLA Basketball, Rams Football, Tennis, he even did soccer in the 60’s…
Now…Ted Robinson
Same as Enberg, he does ever sport and you don’t know he’s there.
And he KNOWS his stuff and has prepared…Swimming/Diving, Tennis, Speed skating, football.
Vitale, Madden, Cosell–it is all about them–and I am not tuning in to hear them.
Growing up in Kansas City, we’d all try to sync the tv broadcast with the radio broadcast for Chefs games, because Harlan cut his teeth as the local play-by-play guy, and was always preferable to whoever was on TV.
Here’s the clip from 2019, Week 17, as KC scores a TD to go up by 10, and Harlan calls the game, AND the NE/Miami game, as Miami score a go-ahead TD. A NE loss and a KC win would mean the Chefs take the #2 bye in the playoffs.
And of course, Kevin Harlan calling PBP for a cat that’s run on the field for DAL/NYG is a classic:
Madden, at least, I think was very good when he first started as an announcer. He was knowledgeable, very good at explaining plays to the viewer (including using the telestrator), and came across as an enthusiastic fan of the game. But, as time went on, I do think that he may have leaned too much on the quirky persona he’d become known for: the "boom!"s, his cross-country bus rides, the six-legged Thanksgiving turkey, etc.
Likely to be an unpopular opinion: Bill Walton. He just rambles on about whatever random stuff crosses his mind, usually about the greatness of the Pac-12 and/or the Grateful Dead, while almost totally ignoring the actual game. Which I don’t really mind, because, y’know, it’s on TV and I can see it. He’s hilarious.
I’ll sometimes watch Pac-12 hoops on ESPN Thursday nights just to hear Bill. I’ve never turned into any other sporting event for the announcer.
Not the best, but someone underrated and really up and coming is Jason Benetti. It took me a little while to warm up to him but he is really good. I’m used to the sound of hearing him call White Sox games but whenever I’m watching something else and I say, hmm… I like this announcer very often it turns out to be Jason. he is very versatile.
For my money, in a big game with a high level of competition and exciting plays, there is no one better than Gus Johnson. The way he can ramp up his voice in big moments conveys the excitement of sports better than anyone. On the other hand, in mediocre matchups and good but not spectacular plays it can get a bit tired. Even so, he’s the one I want to hear in those dramatic and improbable moments that occasionally occur.
I agree – Benetti is very good, and is the sort of announcer who is dedicated to his craft, and really does his homework.
For those unfamiliar with him, Benetti is the White Sox’ play-by-play TV announcer, and does basketball and football, among other sports, for several networks. Benetti was born prematurely, and developed cerebral palsy as a result.
That was certainly yesterday’s Packers-Ravens game.
But as to the OP, I prefer announcers that don’t, um, announce who they are. Most if not all forget that the fans are there for the game, not to listen to long winded announcers.
And they all eventually get overripe. When Madden lost Summerall (who “quit”, then came back. I figure just so he could get a way from the blowhard) he really went downhill. The last several years were near torture. (Plus his man crush on Favre was so over the top as to be painful). And turduckhen? Enough already!
The Suns used to have a great duo of Al McCoy and Cotton Fitzsimmons. They were carried both on radio and TV. Then the organization decided they needed different folk on TV, and it’s been a string of crap teams ever since. Currently we suffer through Eddie Johnson as commentator, who never met an anecdote that he couldn’t both make all about him, and stretch through two commercial breaks. Just shut up already! When we get the substitute of Anne Meyers-Drysdale it’s like a soothing balm.
I don’t think there can be just one. Some announcers are great in one sport but not others. Some are good at a lot, but not the GOAT at any one sport.
My wife’s opinions are:
Baseball: Joe Garagiola Don Drysdale,
The Dbacks had Joe come out on one game a week and just ramble and chat. Even at 90 something he was interesting, and hardly ever came across as a senile old fossil. I miss him.
General sports: Bob Costas, Pat Summerall, Keith Jackson, Chris Schenkel
Skating: Dick Buttons, Johnny Weir and Tara Lipinski
NASCAR: Benny Parsons and Ned Jarrett
Heh, poor Howie Meeker - of Hockey Night Canada fame - never getting the recognition of actually starting to use the telestrator just before JM did.
“Great save, Palmateer!”
Almost as good as Harlan’s cat-call:
Definitely wore out “beaten like a red-headed step-son”.
Yeah I liked Dick Enburg. His tennis contemporary, Bud Collins, not so much.
Best footy commentators - Phil Schoen, Pete Drury.
I soured on Jon Champion with his sometimes petty grandstanding / condescending needling whoever the colour commentator is. (Heh, poor Jim Beglin.)
I remember Kevin Harlan as the voice of the Chiefs before he went national. After he went national, it seemed like he was still calling Chiefs games half the time. 
Harlan and (former Chiefs QB) Rich Gannon make a pretty good team.
- 1 (how on earth did that turn out to be a dot when I most definitely typed a plus sign)
um, discourse?
Not all that fond of Aikman, but Romo?
To me, Romo makes the late Joe Morgan look good. Even Chris Collinsworth is good by comparison…
My favorite is Al Michaels.
This is a worse hot take than anything Joe Morgan ever said in his entire career.
Romo is way better than the brain-damaged Aikman. The only upside to the Packers having a weak season or two is fewer games with Aikman-Buck.
Looks like Joe Buck’s getting an eye-watering contract too to join MNF:
Pretty sure I mentioned Bill Walton already. For a more “serious” answer I would cite Bill Schonely, radio voice of the Blazers for the first thirty years or so. “Lickety brindle up the middle…bingo, bango, bongo…Rip City, baby!!”
I may be partial to my childhood memories here, but the best broadcasting team I can recall is the old Yankees team of Phil Rizzuto, Bill White, and Frank Messer. All three seemed like decent and likeable people, and each brought different talents to bear (as I recall it). Rizzuto was the loveable and colorful personality guy, White was the knowledgeable baseball guy, and Messer was the melifluous broadcast voice.
(Certainly a huge contrast to the later team of Sterling & Waldman, who might be the worst ever.)
For autosports, Bob Varsha is pretty good, but then they had David Hobbs with him, which dragged the whole show down to just average.
Of course, James Hunt was in a class of his own.
Recently I tried to watch one of the NBA playoff games on their app. I have the “League Pass” package, which generally won’t let you watch nationally or locally televised games in real time. But apparently for the playoffs they relax that and give you access to something called “TNT Plus” (I think), which lets you watch live from a single camera feed (you can pick from several; I watched a camera mounted directly above one basket) with NO announcers! I was surprised at how cool it was; the mics are close enough that you can hear the players talking, and you also get the crowd noise and the stadium announcer. I would definitely do that again.