There's Baseball Crack on Youtube

[infrared41]

It's a crime that they don't make baseball announcers like they used to. It's so sad that Joe Buck and Matt Vasgersian are considered the ideal broadcasters now. I mean, you can argue that there were bad broadcasters during the golden age, too, it's just that we just don't remember them fondly (I happened upon Early Wynn doing a game and hoooooo boy), but even mediocre members of the old guard like Dave Niehaus or Denny Matthews are worlds better at their craft than, say, Daron Sutton or Thom Brennaman. It's a good thing we have guys like Pat Hughes, Jon Miller, and Jim Powell, who are almost neoclassical in their approach, but even then, what makes them good is that they're doing their best to stay true to a tradition of capital-letters Great Announcing without necessarily adding to the continuum.

You know, I might legit tear up a little when Uecker dies, and I'm not even a Brewers fan.

EDIT: Joe Garagiola! They sure as hell don't make Joe Garagiolas anymore. Who was the last baseball player to transcend baseball and be that kind of a versatile general public personality? If he were a player today, he'd just mumble that we've gotta take it one day at a time out there, and his nickname would be "J-Garj."

Couldn't agree more.

Current announcers - I'd throw Charlie Steiner in there too. He does a pretty good job on Dodgers games.

Joe Garagiola - My favorite color analyst. I'd forgotten that Joe also hosted some game shows and...he hosted the Tonight Show on occasion. Joe used to call some D-Backs games for their local network on weekends. I think he retired for good in 2011 or '12. I always made it a point to watch the D-Backs games Joe called.

Any game called by Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola is automatically at least 34% better than any game they didn't call.

Throw in Curt Gowdy and I'm with you.

Also, I consider myself spoiled to be old enough to have heard a lot of Chuck Thompson.

Gowdy was great. He called a great football game too. Being from Toledo, I cut my baseball teeth on Ernie Harwell calling Tigers games. "He stood there like the house by the side of the road." "A lucky fan from Livonia got that foul ball."

[ADW77]

[Kramerica Industries]

Wow, I haven't seen so many "things were so much better 30 years ago" posts since my last visit to the logos section.

And, I mean, were many of those broadcasters from 30-50 years ago stellar? Sure. But we don't need to trash the modern generation to hype up the past generation. Not only because many broadcasters of the past were fine on their own merits, but also because broadcasting itself has (d)evolved since then. I'm not going to say Joe Buck is on par with Vin Scully, of course not. But we don't need to start acting like the average broadcaster of today is a complete and utter schmuck compared to the average broadcaster from 1983, because, otherwise, we're falling into the same trap we fall into with many things of the past; remembering the good things, while having forgotten or romanticized the bad things.

--

Sorry, but I had to get that rant out of my system.

[The_Admiral]

I accounted for forgetting the bad things, but if you don't think there's a difference between the old broadcasters and the guys who come off the assembly line at Syracuse, you're kidding yourself. It's not that they're utter schmucks so much as they're fungible. Joe Buck, Vasgersian, Daron Sutton, Thom Brennaman, Josh Lewin, those are all the same guy with different haircuts. Len Kasper would be in there based on how he broadcasts but distinguishes himself for better or worse by sounding like Kermit the Frog.

[infrared41]

Wow, I haven't seen so many "things were so much better 30 years ago" posts since my last visit to the logos section.

And, I mean, were many of those broadcasters from 30-50 years ago stellar? Sure. But we don't need to trash the modern generation to hype up the past generation. Not only because many broadcasters of the past were fine on their own merits, but also because broadcasting itself has (d)evolved since then. I'm not going to say Joe Buck is on par with Vin Scully, of course not. But we don't need to start acting like the average broadcaster of today is a complete and utter schmuck compared to the average broadcaster from 1983, because, otherwise, we're falling into the same trap we fall into with many things of the past; remembering the good things, while having forgotten or romanticized the bad things.

--

Sorry, but I had to get that rant out of my system.

What the admiral said plus a whatever.

[Sport]

I accounted for forgetting the bad things, but if you don't think there's a difference between the old broadcasters and the guys who come off the assembly line at Syracuse, you're kidding yourself. It's not that they're utter schmucks so much as they're fungible. Joe Buck, Vasgersian, Daron Sutton, Thom Brennaman, Josh Lewin, those are all the same guy with different haircuts. Len Kasper would be in there based on how he broadcasts but distinguishes himself for better or worse by sounding like Kermit the Frog.

Vasgersian sounds like he's doing an impression of a baseball announcer, Joe Buck thinks so much of himself, and I like Thom Brennaman (fellow OU Bobcat). The games always have a different feeling when he does them versus Jim Kelch (who sounds like he's doing a VIn Scully impression).

Here's an unpopular opinion amongst Reds fans - If it weren't for nostalgia reasons I'd be completely over Marty Brennaman. He injects his opinion far too much and the older he gets the more curmudgeonly he gets.

[The_Admiral]

Yeah, ol' Franchester has always seemed to have a mean streak compared to his contemporaries. I can listen to WLW on clear summer nights, and he always seems to be bitter about something or another. Maybe it's because he has to work with Jeff Brantley, who is a xerox of a fax of a xerox of Mike Shannon.

[infrared41]

Brantley is God-awful. Well, he is in my book anyway.