2012 MLB Season

[Kramerica Industries]

And Michael Young ends the bid for young Parker.

Good. Now I can turn off a worthless 10-0 ballgame in Oakland.

[LMU]

I think we can safely say that Ervin Santana can't keep blaming run support. He's just awful.

[The Six]

My only regret of my team winning the World Series was that Joe Buck called it.

[CS85]

My only regret of my team winning the World Series was that Joe Buck called it.

"There's a fly ball, and (team) are the champions. Don't forget, tonight on Fox immediately after the World Series postgame show, a brand new 'The Finder,' only here on Fox."

[FiddySicks]

My only regret of my team winning the World Series was that Joe Buck called it.

That was actually a really big concern for me as well, but I ended up going to game 1 and for the final two games I paused my TV long enough to match up with Kruk and Kuip on KNBR. It made the whole experience that much more special.

[STL FANATIC]

I guess I just don't get the hate over his championship calls. To me he gets out of the way. Some announcers make themselves part of the moment, he backs off and lets the moment be the moment. Don't know why that's such a bad thing.

[Sport]

I don't think Joe Buck is as bad as people say either.

I really like Bob Costas on baseball broadcasts, but I think his call of the Braves championship in 95 is one of the worst.

"and the team of the 90's has their world championship".

Hold on, Bob. It was 1995 and only the 5th World Series of that decade. At that point the Blue Jays were the "team of the 90's" and the Yankees went on to win 3 World Series in that decade after 95, which makes Costas' declaration feel even more silly and outdated looking back on it. The Braves in 1995 were just a good team that lost their first two World Series.

It would be like if the Texas Rangers end up winning the world Series this year and the game ends with "and the team of whatever this decade is has their world championship".

Joe Buck has never ended a season with anything that hammy.

[The_Admiral]

Bob Costas transcends the time-space continuum and as such already knew that the Braves would win another ten divisions. This is accepted fact. Look at his hair.

For the defenses of Joe Buck centered around "he knows how to get out of the way of a big moment": Vin Scully has been lauded for knowing how to get out of the way of a big moment, yet no one has ever accused Vin Scully of sounding like there's someplace he'd rather be than calling a baseball game.

[Island_Style]

I am searching like mad for the clip of this quote from Space Ghost to Bob Costas.

"You clearly have no idea what you're talking about you handsome, sophisticated, hyper-intelligent, svelte, well-read, sparkling, salty, olive-complected, full-head-of-haired Man!"

[BigBubba]

I guess I just don't get the hate over his championship calls. To me he gets out of the way. Some announcers make themselves part of the moment, he backs off and lets the moment be the moment. Don't know why that's such a bad thing.

I don't know, but I like it when the announcer becomes "part of the moment". There's nothing quite like a memorable sports call that is synonymous with that moment/championship.

[NJTank]

[STL FANATIC]

I guess I just don't get the hate over his championship calls. To me he gets out of the way. Some announcers make themselves part of the moment, he backs off and lets the moment be the moment. Don't know why that's such a bad thing.

I don't know, but I like it when the announcer becomes "part of the moment". There's nothing quite like a memorable sports call that is synonymous with that moment/championship.

Don't disagree with that either. Joe's dad was great at that, both locally and nationally.

But I guess I just don't have a taste for one over the other. Just make sure I, the viewer and/or fan, am able to enjoy and grasp the moment. If the announcer can add to it great, but if he prefers to be subtle and step aside, I don't have issue with that either.

Again, to me, the worst case is a Jim Nantz type gimmick call. Or, even though I think Costas is typically good, the call mentioned earlier in this thread. It's no good when they strain themselves to be creative.

[STL FANATIC]

For the defenses of Joe Buck centered around "he knows how to get out of the way of a big moment": Vin Scully has been lauded for knowing how to get out of the way of a big moment, yet no one has ever accused Vin Scully of sounding like there's someplace he'd rather be than calling a baseball game.

Yeah, but Vin Scully's 84 years old and has the "everything was better back then" charm. Joe Buck is of the now, so naturally, he doesn't stack up.

[DaytonBlue]

A couple weeks ago the Cardinals broadcast against the Padres lost transmission. They switched the FS Midwest feed to the San Diego feed and we got to hear Dick Enburg. He was quite refreshing and even welcomed the Cardinals audience. He said something like "three Padres on the pillows" when they had bases loaded. Nice.

The guy who does WGN White Sox broadcasts who yells "mercy" every time something good happens to the Sox makes those games almost unwatchable.

I just saw the Post-Dispatch headline from the no-hitter with the asterisk. That's embarrassing and classless. If it was the other way around, P-D writers would be howling about sportsmanship.

As for instant replay, the problem that arises in using it all the time is that a sequence of plays depend on what happened before them. For example, let's say a center-fielder makes a diving catch in center field, then replay shows he trapped it. The runners returned to their bases and did not try to advance. Do you just give them a base? Two bases? And what about foul calls that are changed to fair? Do you have everyone go back to where they were then yell "go"?

I feel like review could only be used in certain situations.

[RyanMcD29]

Might as well go into my Buck critique considering I haven't chimed in on him yet.

I don't mind him for baseball. Football's what gripes me about him. At the very least Buck's got an appreciation of baseball, especially via his late father, and he's tolerable calling MLB games. As stated earlier, he's better at calling big moments in baseball compared to some of his counterparts by getting his two cents in and then letting the moment play out (for instance, Game 6 of the World Series last year). The issue with him is having McCarver with him and.. basically everything else on Fox's production end. I still prefer Costas to him but he's not that bad for baseball... him being the lead NFL announcer just irks me the wrong way as it does for many other people.

Also, watching a special on MLB Network the other day, man Sean McDonough was pretty good at big game moments. I mean, the guy could and has called everything in his career (baseball, basketball, college football, hockey, lacrosse...), and if ESPN/ABC were to snag some playoff rights away he'd be a pretty good guy to call them if there's multiple games on the networks and the Sunday Night Baseball crew was doing a different series (think back to the way it was pre-2007 with ESPN and Fox splitting LDS games)

[The Six]

I guess I just don't get the hate over his championship calls. To me he gets out of the way. Some announcers make themselves part of the moment, he backs off and lets the moment be the moment. Don't know why that's such a bad thing.

Buck clearly doesn't care about baseball, or the "moment." I don't think he's backing off to allow the moment to speak, he's backing up because he has nothing profound, or even mildly interesting to say. He adds nothing to broadcasts, and perhaps worse does not appear to have any ambition to. We might as well get a split screen so we could just read his broadcast notes ourselves; it would have the same effect.

For the defenses of Joe Buck centered around "he knows how to get out of the way of a big moment": Vin Scully has been lauded for knowing how to get out of the way of a big moment, yet no one has ever accused Vin Scully of sounding like there's someplace he'd rather be than calling a baseball game.

Yeah, but Vin Scully's 84 years old and has the "everything was better back then" charm. Joe Buck is of the now, so naturally, he doesn't stack up.

Nah, that "people only like him cuz he's old" canard won't work. Scully calls games with a passion and joy that comes through, and he actually has things to say about players and teams, and stories, original stories to tell.

[tBBP]

"The thing about a gun is that it's not the bullet that kills you, it's the effects of that bullet."Fort Leonard Wood! I know that area. It's one of the most godforsaken places I've ever been.

Otherwise lovingly known as America's a$$hole.

Actually, that'd be Fort Polk.

Lost in the Woods is another kind of "special", though.

[Breakwood]

Colby Rasmus is having a decent game today. 5 for 5 with a home run.

[The_Admiral]

"The thing about a gun is that it's not the bullet that kills you, it's the effects of that bullet."Fort Leonard Wood! I know that area. It's one of the most godforsaken places I've ever been.

Otherwise lovingly known as America's a$hole.

Actually, that'd be Fort Polk.

Lost in the Woods is another kind of "special", though.

Mid-Missouri is the America that people hate.

[Cujo]

Ryan Dempster finally got some goddamn run support. Barring an 8-run collapse, he's in line for his first win of the season!!1!OMG!