My heroes have always been Kuipers
Posted: September 4th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball, Media | 82 Comments »
There’s a great story about one of the legends of sports television, Frank Chirkinian. If the name doesn’t ring a bell, yeah, don’t worry. That’s the way Frank wanted it. Sure, there have been a million stories written about other sports television innovators, say someone like Roone Arledge. Frank never wanted all that. He never made time for all that stuff. He never cared if anyone knew his name.
Frank spent his professional life trying to get television viewers a different look into sports. He was constantly testing, experimenting, pushing limits. Frank was the first guy to put a camera in the Goodyear Blimp — an accomplishment that, he readily admits, he would prefer not being on his tombstone. He was the first guy to put microphones in the corner of a boxing ring. He was the first guy to figure out how to have a camera stay with the horses around track.
He invented the way golf is covered on television. He loves golf most of all — for many years he used to live in Augusta because that kept him close to the Masters. That’s when I got to know him a bit, back when I was in Augusta as a columnist. Virtually everything that makes today’s golf coverage — multiple announcers at different holes, on-course analysts who follow the golfers, even the whole plus-minus-to-par scoring system that has become so familiar — these were Frank Chirkinian innovations. He was typically and grumpily modest about it all. “Eh, that just comes from being around forever,” he said. “If it wasn’t me, somebody else would have come up with it.
Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, the story goes that Chirkinian used to gather up his golf announcers. And this is what he told them: “The first person who says, ‘The ball is in the hole,’ is fired.”
That, to me, is the single greatest lesson for television announcing. This should be the book title for the sports announcing manual. Don’t tell me the ball is in the hole. I can SEE the ball is in the hole. Another great Frank quote on the subject: “Some people just talk and talk for no reason. … Silence is like a sword.”
All of this leads up to this awesome story and chart in the Wall Street Journal. The headline is telling: “Meet Baseball’s Chattiest TV Announcers.” And the premise is beautifully simple — it’s something I wish I had thought to do. Writer David Biderman simply counted the words television play by play announcers used last Friday in their first scoreless inning. He then estimated how many words they spoke per minute.
Of course, this is a small sample size. A VERY small sample size. But I think the whole thing is supposed to be fun. And it probably won’t surprise you to learn that Vin Scully spoke the most words per minute. I’m always a bit rattled by the different reactions to Scully. I personally love his announcing and I always have; I think he’s the closest thing that baseball has ever had to a poet laureate. His final inning call for the Koufax perfect game in ‘65 has been reprinted and, I’m sure, is as electric and immediate as anything that was written about the game. “There’s 29,000 people in the ballpark and a million butterflies … Fastball outside, ball 2 — (boos!) — a lot of people in the ballpark are starting to see the pitches with their hearts, the pitch was outside … I would think the mound at Dodger stadium right now is the loneliest place in the world … On the scoreboard in right field it is 9:46 p.m. in the City of Angels, Los Angeles California.” And so on.
Yes, I love Scully, and I guess I thought he was universally loved. Well, while I think most people love Scully, but I also hear from a surprising number of people who do not, who thinks he talks too much on television. According to the Wall Street Journal, there’s a point there: Scully pushes out 143 words per minute on TV, by far the most among play by play announcers. It’s not a fair comparison because Scully is the only play by play TV announcer who works alone, without an analyst. Then again, it is a fair comparison because Scully DOES talk a lot. It takes a lot of words to paint pictures and share stories. How does that work on television? I like it with Scully because he’s such a master. But I will also concede that to me, Scully was and is always at his best on radio, he is at his best sparking the imagination. His voice was made for long car rides and summer picnics and warm and hazy summer nights.
Dan McLaughlin of the Cardinals came in a strong second at 109.93 words per minute.* I have not seen or heard much of Dan McLaughlin, but I have a dear friend who watches every single Cardinals game on television and she seems to like him quite a lot. I guess Brilliant Readers will tell me what they think.
*Just as a side note: I love that the writer of the story took the number of words out to the second decimal point.
The next five are Bob Carpenter with the Nationals, George Grande with the Reds (a wonderful soul), Daron Sutton with the Diamondbacks, my good friend Ryan Lefebvre with the Royals, and Brian Anderson with the Brewers. I’ll let people who watch these guys every night comment about whether they talk too much or too little or whatever. I can speak a bit about Ryan, though as mentioned he’s a friend of mine so you know my starting point on this: I think Ryan comes right out of the Vin Scully school of broadcasting. That is: He doesn’t have a catch phrase, and he doesn’t have a shtick, and he likes to tell stories. I really thought he was one of the best baseball radio broadcasters in America, and I think he would have been happy doing that for the rest of his career. But a series of events pushed him to TV, and I will let others comment on how they feel about Ryan on TV. I’ll say this: It seems to me that on radio, you are painting murals. On television, in many ways, you are a museum tour guide commenting about murals. That’s less fun and tougher in many ways.
As you go down the list, the numbers drop pretty quickly. Dave Niehaus in Seattle averaged 84.14 words per minute, Don Orsillo in Boston 81.73 words. Michael Kay and Gary Cohen for the Yankees and Mets respectively averaged 73 words per minute — so we now know that there are 73 words fit in a New York minute. I’ve actually heard quite a bit of Dwayne Staats in Tampa, and I have always thought he was good and understated — he comes in at just 69.69 words per minute.
And this finally gets us to the point of the post. The Kuipers. I don’t need to explain again why I love the Kuipers (numerous Brilliant Readers sent me this Wall Street Journal link — so you know). Glen Kuiper in Oakland — brother of my hero Duane — averages just 65 words per minute. By coincidence, I’ve watched the A’s broadcast a couple of times recently, and I’ve come to think that Glen is really good. Baseball on television, to me, is not an in your face experience. It’s a long season. It’s a steady game. For me, personally, I like a steady voice like Glen’s to take me through the summer. And hey, I’m not saying that I get no kick out of Hawk Harrelson (who, surprisingly to me at least, comes in on the low end of word count at 70.98). Every so often, I try to catch a Hawk Harrelson game because he’s a character and the White Sox homer thing works for me when I’m in a certain mood. I like Dick Vitale too. But I can’t handle that sort of attack-style announcing very often or for very long.
But heres the best thing of all: Do you know which play-by-play announcer used the fewest words? Of course you do: Duane Kuiper with the San Francisco Giants. And it wasn’t close: Duane spoke right at the speed-limit: 55 words per minute.
This absolutely brightens my day because to me it says everything that needs to be said about my lifelong hero. Duane doesn’t spend time telling you that the team really could use a double play RIGHT HERE. He doesn’t spend a lot of time announcing that this foul ball is in the seats or that ground ball was routine or that a pitcher needs a strikeout to get out of this jam. He fills the empty spaces and says funny things and tells you a few things that you might not see on TV. He infuses games with his love of baseball but he never tries to impress upon you that he’s smarter than you are. He never talks down to the viewer. He never seems to inflict a story on us that doesn’t fit in the moment. And he tries to stay out of the way.
I don’t think there’s a perfect way to call a television game — every television viewer has different expectations, different levels of awareness, different annoyance points, different opinions about the game. Some want the screaming, and some want the detailed explanations, and some want sharp opinion.
But for me the best television baseball announcers are the ones who tell me stuff I don’t know without bludgeoning me with stuff I can see perfectly well for myself. They know the game but don’t constantly remind you that they know the game. They comment without being obvious, and they tell you the corner infielders are in without blathering on about how this is a bunt situation, and they make you feel that somehow across a thousand miles this is still a two-way conversation. It’s a tough hurdle to clear, I admit. Hey, I couldn’t do it. I mean look how many words I used just for this post. Duane Kuiper would have cut this post off a half hour ago.
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I can’t believe I’m first.
And I worked with frank chirkinian for a year as an intern, and he was a nice man and generous with his time and his teaching.
and, I bought 3 copies of The Machine, and I wish you’d stop putting excerpts of the book out there. I want to get to it as soon as I can.
“But for me the best television baseball announcers are the one who tells me stuff I don’t know without bludgeoning me with stuff I can see perfectly well for myself. They know the game but don’t constantly remind you that they know the game. They comment without being obvious, and they tell you the corner infielders are in without blathering on about how this is a bunt situation, and they make you feel that somehow across a thousand miles that this is a two-way conversation.”
Bob Carpenter of the Nats is the exact opposite of this. He makes my ears bleed.
Any thoughts or numbers on the late Harry Kalas. I know everyone from the Philly area loved to listen to him.
I saw the chart in the WSJ yesterday, and got excited and thought it was brilliant…until I saw that the whole thing was based on ONE INNING. Which then made me think it was an entirely useless chart. Surely there are innings when Kuiper says 96.71 and Lefebvre says 55.44? Great idea, terrible execution.
Reminds me of some words of wisdom from the Hagakure.
“make an effort to settle things by fitting ten words into one.”
Kuiper is a wise man to follow the way of the samurai. Now if only Michael Kay could follow suit and off himself in shame.
Isn’t Scully simulcast on TV and radio for the first few innings? It might have been more fair to tally one of Scully’s TV innings.
I concur with comment 2. Carpenter constantly hammers the viewer over the head not only with how much he thinks he knows about baseball, but also with how he thinks baseball ought to be played. He’s a bad version of Bob Costas who likes to pretend the game is being played in a Norman Rockwell illustration. Not to mention that Carpenter’s signature/excitement calls are frequently wrong or too anticipatory. And don’t even get me started on the Nationals’ color guy, Rob Dibble.
I so badly hoped this would work its way around to being about Ernie Harwell. Today’s news about him is just crushing and all day when somebody’s asked it’s either been a bad day for allergies or my eyes just look like that because I’m tired.
I think one of the reasons Ryan L. talks to much is because he’s trying to distract us from how bad the Royals are. And I think he genuinely loves his job.
As a diehard Mets fan — we’re dying, and it’s hard, believe me — I’ve found Gary Cohen to be unbelievably good. He’s funny when there’s room to be, he’s engaged without being a homer, and he’s willing to be as critical as the situation demands.
Props also to Keith Hernandez & (especially) Ron Darling, who have both been pleasant surprises to me as the analysts.
I always loved Lefebvre and though him a worthy heir-apparent to Denny on the radio. I think your assessment on Radio v. TV is spot-on, and Ryan is an excellent example of this.
I know this was about announcers and not color-men, but if someone kept track of “pointless stories that go on for three innings about how his friend washes his toupee in the dishwasher,” well…
…Ron Santo’s count would be off the charts.
Sure, this was limited to TV announcers but what would the late, great Joe Nuxhall average? I doubt he spoke in double digit words-per-minute.
Bob Carpenter speaks too much when goes much over zero words per minute. He’s got to bet he worst play-by-play guy in the sport.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Scully is in a class by himself. I admit that one of the reasons I adore Scully is because he was basically the baseball voice of my childhood (other than Bob Murphy and Ralph Kiner), doing all the games of the week on NBC in the 80s. But it’s amazing to tune in now and see he hasn’t missed a beat. He’s the best.
I may be in the minority, but I am a Reds’ fan who appreciates George Grande. Now that he is doing fewer games, it seems that I appreciate him even more. We are lucky to have such good announcers on TV (Grande, T. Brennaman, Chris “The Creeper” Welsh, and Jeff “The Cowboy” Brantley) and the radio (T. Brennaman, Cowboy, and Marty Brennaman). Perhaps it is because we are a bad team, but I love listening to all these guys.
Rocket (hey, Rocket) is largely spot-on about Bob Carpenter. What bugs me about him is that he’s too much of a homer, saying things like “Wouldn’t it be great if Zimmerman could launch one here!” YES, of course it would be great, everyone over the age of six who’s a Nats fan would like to see Zimm hit a home run. We don’t need the announcers to tell us that.
Bob Carpenter is simply awful. He’s so bad, it actually makes me happy that the Nats basically don’t bother to put games on broadcast TV (and that I don’t have cable).
Joe,
I haven’t read the article, but am curious if anyone who has can answer: Was the word-count inclusive of promotional or commercial material? Or, was it limited strictly to play-by-play, color commentary, and observational asides (that is, non-obligatory words)?
I imagine a plug for MLB’s newest promotion with Taco Bell or (more than) a few mentions of Ace Tickets would certainly drive up the count.
Scully is simulcast on radio for the first 3 innings, then he’s radio only innings 4-6, and TV only innings 7-9. He’s the best, and despite the fact that he talks a lot during the game he NEVER intrudes on the action and he shuts up and lets the crowd speak after a big moment. I think he’s silent for a solid minute after calling “she is…GONE!” on the Gibson home run before coming back with the immortal “In a year that has been so improbable, the IMPOSSIBLE has happened.” Compare that to Jack Buck yammering on and repeating himself ceaselessly while Gibson circles the bases.
I suppose this might be the right jumping off point to slip in a nod to Ernie Harwell*. My first baseball memories were of listening to Harwell call Tiger games back in 1978. He was famous for saying things like “that’s a young man from Kalamazoo who snagged that foul ball” – and I was mesmerized that Harwell could know where everyone was from. Years later, when I finally realized he was just making it up, well, it was a bit like finding out there is no Santa Claus.
Anyway, Ernie hasn’t called games in a few years now, and yesterday he announced he has inoperable cancer. And while you can’t be too sad about the impending mortality of a 91 year old man, it isn’t too soon to miss him – because I’ve been missing him for years.
[*Fun fact, which ties in with the theme of Joe's post: Ernie Harwell did the TV call (the first national coast-to-coast broadcast) for Bobby Thompson's "Shot heard 'round the world". But nobody remembers that because, in his understated way, all Ernie said was, "It's gone!".]
Many thoughts on this one…
How did the researcher control for the actual length of an inning? In a quick inning sometimes there is little time to tell a story or discuss strategy so far fewer words are necessary. This seems very suspect to me.
Like Joe, I do too like Scully. (How many people think his name is “Vince Cully” by the way?) When he speaks there is generally a great reason for his spoken words – almost tantalizing in fact.
Far too many announcers just like to talk and facts or timely accounts of things happening on the field of play go by the wayside. Dead air is okay but when there is too much of it then the producer sees fit for more live game advertisements and that can completely deflate the listening experience.
Back to Scully….”Two and two to Harvey Kuenn….” I was not aware until just now that Kuenn made the final out in two of Koufax’ four no-hitters (1963, 1965- the Perfect Game that Scully called so precisely.
Interesting…
Didn’t Bob Carpenter do the Cardinals broadcasts before Dan McLaughlin? I guess the Redbirds like their announcers chatty.
Then again, if a guy like Pujols was on the team I had to talk about for a living, I’d probably gush about him every chance I got too.
When Ryan replaced the great Fred White, I was one of the fans who was really upset. I loved Fred White, I loved the idea of “Fred and Denny,” I actually had hopes of Fred and Denny being inducted in the the Hall of Fame together.
As the years have gone by, though, I came to appreciate Ryan. Then, the last few years when Fred was brought back into the radio booth I realized the reason I liked Ryan Lefebvre is because he is really a younger version of Fred White.
They have an incredibly similar style. Maybe others don’t see that as a compliment, but I mean it as high praise. Here’s hoping Ryan has as long and successful a career as Fred did.
I watched a Dodger game a few weeks ago and was a) surprised to see that Vin was still working, and b) he worked alone. You can be pretty sure that when he retires there will be two people replacing him.
Re: Ernie Harwell. I grew up in SW Ontario as an Oriole fan before the advent of the internet. Basically the only time I could hear Oriole games was when they played the Tigers, so Ernie is one of my voices of summer.
Carpenter must get paid by the word, and talks twice as much as the radio team put together. He also overcharged for a signature scorebook that wasn’t even designed properly. Ron Darling lasted a year, and was pretty much the best DC had I think, even though I was suprised by Sutton being OK while here.
Scully used to bother me a lot more when I was younger because he seemed to have had this obsession with numerology. That, and I hated the Dodgers.
Damn, I’m gonna need to change my login now.
Gary Thorne came on the low end of the spectrum. Gary’s a good announcer, I like him. If the author had gotten a Jim Hunter night I suspect the numbers would have been higher.
Of course, Gary doesn’t have to talk too much. The only thing Jim Palmer loves more than the sound of his own voice is the sound of his own voice talking about how great he is. I want to see the numbers on color guys. Palmer has to take the cake.
At least on XM Scully only does the first 3 innings on the radio at which point it switches to Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday. At which point I change the XM channel.
My least favorite baseball listening experience on the XM has got to be the Reds.
Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday…. that’s one heck of an odd pairing. I thought Steiner was a basketball guy, too, wasn’t he working for NBA Network after leaving ESPN?
Michael Kay’s in a three-man booth. Gotta be a way to normalize for this.
Giants fan of 50+ years here. Duane Kuiper actually seemed a bit boring when he first started announcing, but eventually we caught up with his style. He gets pretty excitable when the play on the field calls for it (his home run calls are as much a part of Giants fandom now as Bye Bye Baby, I’d say); he just keeps the verbiage down most of the time. It should be noted, though, that he usually works with Mike Krukow, who does talk a lot. That’s not meant as a complaint … Kruk and Kuip make a great team. But it might help explain why Duane is relatively quiet.
I’m surprised how much hatred there is for Bob Carpenter out there in PozLand. First, I didn’t know that every last one of the Nats’ viewers were regular commenters here, so that was a revelation.
I really don’t watch the Nats that often. I chase down the Red Sox whenever they’re on ESPN or MLB Network, and I really don’t mind the Orioles broadcast. (Orioles games are more interesting because (a) the Orioles are better than the Nats and (b) the National League is a frickin’ joke* right now.)
* Exhibits A-C: Julio Lugo, John Smoltz, Brad Penny.
I’m not a fan of Bob Carpenter, but I don’t mind him so much. I guess I’m so distracted by the tortured logic of Rob Dibble that I’ve never given much thought to Carpenter. What I have noticed, however, is that Carpenter (and Dibble) spend(s) a lot of time telling us not to trust what we’re seeing. That the Nats are close to turning the corner, that Adam Dunn really isn’t so bad defensively, that all the teams who gave up on Willie Harris (is he still on the team?) are regretting it now, etc., etc., etc.
For that, I blame the management, who I assume has sent down word to be positive about this putrid team. And Carpenter is doing his best to look on the bright side. A lot of hard-hit balls right at the defenders. A grounder that shouldn’t have been scored an error. An inning that the starting pitcher might have escaped.
It’s pretty painful, yes. But it befits a terrible team.
Another Ernie Harwell vote here… a man who truly used silence as an accouncing technique. I listen to a lot of announcers these days because of XM, and I understand why Ernie was one of the early winners of the Frick Award.
(I also wish the Royals/Entercom would find a way to get Ryan Lefebve back into the radio booth so Denny Matthews can go away, but that’s a rant for another time.)
Life-long Giants fan (not quite 50+ years), and you are spot-on about Kuip. I watched a rebroadcast of a 1987 Giants game where Joe Morgan was the play-by-play, and Duane Kuiper was the color guy. Watching the game, I can’t help but notice how better suited Morgan is for color and Kuiper was for play-by-play. That and Kuip’s voice has lowered quite a bit in 22 years!
I can’t stand Scully (probably because he’s the epitome of Dodgerdom), but I think Jon Miller does a wonderful job at painting a baseball game, much like Scully does. In fact, Miller does a nice Scully impersonation as well.
I do agree with you though, Duane Kuiper is one of the best TV guys in baseball. You don’t have to tell us what we’re seeing, but you can get us excited about it, or provide a lead-in for the color guy to add some insight. Thanks for the post!
I wonder if these comments aren’t a bit like people’s opinions of Congress. They bitch and moan about how Congress as a whole goes about their business but when it comes down to their own congressman/woman they find reasons to vote for them again and again. Somwhow, familiarity does not seem to breed contempt in these instances. If an announcer survives the first season or maybe two then they’ve created their own niche in their area of listenership and they’ll go on forever in some cases. Same with those representing us in Congress? Maybe…just a thought anyhow…
Want to know why Hawk Harrelson comes in so low? Because whenever the other team does something good or the White Sox do something bad, he sits there, petulant, and says nothing. Also, whenever there is a fly ball or pop up hit to a member of the White Sox, he will announce only the first name of the player about to catch it. Those shenanigans bring down the word count pretty quick.
No real strong feelings about TV announcers. When I have a game on TV I’m usually on my computer following several other games, so it’s rare when I actually listen to the commentary.
#3 Phil Lee
Kalas was awesome and quite obviously not replaceable. However, I really like Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen. I will forever remember the time they had a conversation that went something like this on a sunday afternoon:
Franzke: i see you have a picture of tom berenger on your computer monitor. big fan?
andersen: he tried to kill me last night.
franzke: wait, what?
andersen: well it was a nightmare i had.
i listened to a nat’s game. he was a bit over the top. i did get to hear him call a play in which the 2nd baseman, covering first on a bunt moved out of the way of an accurately thrown ball. that will be my lasting impression.
How many of Harrelson’s 70 words were just “the good guys” repeated over and over?
I’ve been listening to Vin Scully since 1963. He now does the whole game on TV, with the first three innings simulcast on radio so, yes, comparing his word count to TV-only announcers is somewhat apples and oranges.
And while I still love him, he is finally starting to slip a little bit. He gets names wrong more often, and I’ve noticed lately he doesn’t seem to be seeing pitches well. He’ll say a ball was low when it was clearly outside, call a fastball a slider, things like that. He only does home games and West coast road games now (he doesn’t go east of Denver), and it will be a very sad day when he decides to finally hang it up.
As a Cardinals fan, I really like Dan McLaughlin… when he works without Al Hrabosky. The problem with Dan and Al is that they have trouble focusing on the game itself, and end up wasting too much time talking about things unrelated to the game. Without Al, Dan is much better, but lemme tell ya there are times when I just want to turn the TV on mute because they refuse to announce the damn game.
Whenever I hear anything about George Grande’s personality, it’s just as you said, he’s a good soul, nicest guy ever, etc. This must be precisely the reason he still has a job announcing baseball games on television.
Because he is AWFUL. He pronounces names wrong. He has terrible catch phrases. Whenever he says something incorrect, instead of righting himself, he just continues babbling until (he hopes) you forget he was wrong in the first place. If he stumbles over, or uses the wrong word, he makes the sentence fit the word as best as possible (which always makes it worse). I’ve not heard the Washington announcer that everyone on here has nominated for worst ever, but I’ll take him blindly, straight-up in a trade. Because George Grande is worse. And makes everyone that works color with him worse than him.
Living where I live, I hear Dave Niehaus entirely too much, and people like Duane and Glen Kuiper entirely too little. The few times I have had the pleasure, it’s been just that.
I thank the baseball gods for last night, in general, and then specifically when Gutierrez executed a squeeze bunt. Kuiper commended Gutierrez on the bunt, and the runner on not giving the play away and moved on. Dave Niehaus would have had you believe Gutierrez found the cure for cancer and achieved world peace. My oh my.
Finally, the Royals are in the top half of the league in something other than running into outs on the bases. Thank you Ryan Levebre.
As a Cardinals fan, it’s hard for me to listen to anyone because they aren’t Jack Buck. That’s not their fault; it’s my problem. That said, Dan & Al drive me batty. John Rooney, on the other hand, is a really comfortable listen.
Joe, say it ain’t so. Some love for Dwayne Staats? That guy is easily the worst play-by-play man in baseball. Even worse than Hawk. Calling him understated is an abomination. Or maybe you just haven’t heard him call a Yanks game. Ugh.
Can we adjust this somehow for quality? I mean Vin Scully is at 143 words per minute but 120 of them are worth listening to.
Ken Harrelson is at 71 words a minute and not one of them is worth listening to.
So Vin might be a -23, but Hawk, he gone at a -71.
Good for Kuiper. I like the Giants team on EI. But I usually listen to Scully if I can because he won’t be around much longer.
Jack Brickhouse probably would have come in on the low end of the word count. Most of the early TV guys understood that the picture took care of most of their job. Now you have a lot of guys who love the sound of their own voices and have apparently been taught “no dead air” under any circumstances.
Dick and Bert are unquestionably the worst pair of broadcasters. They cling to outdated/incorrect ideas about how the game should be played and often repeat the same lines; game after game. It’s borderline unlistenable. If Bert was describing himself he would be a “curve ball type pitcher.?
I think Kuiper’s relative silence is mostly due to Krukow’s lack of it.
Scully is my favorite of all time on radio, although Al Michaels was very good, too, when he was with the Reds.
Thought Ryan was excellent on radio. Perfect for the Royals. Even when they were getting blown out, he was very entertaining.
I watch Glen Kuiper every day and he’s not very good. It doesn’t surprise me that he doesn’t average many words per minute, but the reason why this is is because he rarely has anything insightful to say about the game. To give one example, you might be able to relate to, Alberto Callaspo hit a fly ball to center the other day that Rajai Davis dove for and missed. In the cavernous coliseum, a one-legged Mo Vaughn would have made it to 3rd easily, but as Callaspo rounded 2nd on his way to a stand-up triple, Kuiper said, “watch out, Callaspo can run.” Maybe he meant it in the literal sense, but I’m not gonna give him the benefit of the doubt.
His brother Duane is much better, though. That’s how Glen got the job in the first place.
Hmm, hope this doesn’t post twice, but I was told the first attempt timed out …
As a Cubs fan I wanted to check in on our own Len and Bob. I was pleased to see Len come in pretty low on the word count, because the two of them do let the game speak for itself a lot of the time. They screw around a bit too, but some of it’s funny, like the running joke about the glue that holds society together (“Yes dear, you’re right, I’m sorry”). But what I love the most about them is that Len’s a stathead and Bob isn’t afraid to rip the Cubs when they do something stupid.
Vin Scully IS the voice of baseball for me…I sometimes watch Dodger games just to listen to him (and get my irrational Manny fix).
Don Orsillo has been fantastic this year. How many p-b-p guys could have handled the multiple booth partner parade as well? He really drew out the best from all of them. I’ve always though Don was actually the stronger of the DO-JR pairing (despite Remdawg’s cult-like status), and this summer I think he’s been fantastic.
The worst is Joe Buck. Both he and Vin demand the viewer’s attention more than most announcers…but Vin does it with his ballpark-poetry, versus Joe’s attention-whore opinionated yammering.
While Dave Niehaus is great, he only stays for the first 3 innings nowadays, and his replacement, Dave Sims, is one of the worst announcers I have ever heard from any sporting event. He constantly laughs at stupid inane crap. And when I have watched Mariners’ games with friends, they are amazed at how often I am able to correct something inaccurate Sims says. He is just plain terrible.
As a Cardinal fan that lives in the Northeast, I subscribe to MLB TV online to watch Cardinal games. I watch nearly every one, and I rarely watch the Cardinal broadcast. Dan is okay, but Al is horrible and he dominates the broadcast. Dan simply isn’t a strong enough personality to control Hrabosky. Al is too much like McCarver, he doesn’t actually understand anything about baseball, but he spends the entire broadcast trying to impress you with his “knowledge”. He just won’t shut up.
I also love listening to Vin; when the Cardinal game is over, I switch to the Dodger game.
@ #27- Mike
I had the same thought you did.
I hate Yankee broadcast for fill my living room with so much useless sound.
Assume Kay talks a quarter of the minutes in the inning- the other 2 guys talk half the inning, and the last quarter (I wish) is spent in silence.
That means that Kay is actually squeezing those 73 words into 15 seconds- that sounds more like the guy I know.
Hey, Yankee fans…Don’t you just want to scream when Michael Kay does his uniform color description for both teams early in the broadcast? I know it must be his signature thing to do at or near the start of each game but he may as well be describing the condiments that he put on a hot dog for his pre-game meal. I mean, c’mon Kay, we get it already. Each team wears a different style uniform and the home team normally wears white and the visiting club is in gray. Damn! Now I’m really pumped for this game to get going!
Lefebvre talks entirely too much. I’m sick of hearing stories about how he used to be a player at the U of Minnesota, how the Royals need to bunt more, how the Royals need to move runners by giving up outs, etc., etc., etc. I would be happy to see Trey and Dayton fired, but I would settle for Lefebvre, the worst announcer in baseball next to The Hawk in Chicago.
But wait, The Hawk is one of “The Good Guys” and that speaks for something. I kind of actually like Harrelson and his “good guys” line never gets old to me….it’s so simple….like The Hawk!
i won’t be happy til there are at least a dozen more comments on the awful work of ken harrelson. one or two comments have mentioned the idea that someone else might be worse in the booth than harrelson, but i just can’t imagine that’s possible. he’s the worst kind of homer, he has not one catch phrase, but ten (give or take), he pouts, he whines, he’s got to be the worst. at least steve stone is there to bring the average up, i couldn’t listen to more than an inning or two when it was harrleson and jackson. ugh.
Ned Martin and Harrelson on Red Sox telecasts in the 70’s. Martin was fantastic, and Hawk was actually a good analyst. His current act would never have sold back then.
Michael Kay might not be much of an announcer, but the Fake Michael Kay twitter feed is outstanding.
Essentially correct is # 48, but he is too kind. Glen Kuiper is an imbecile. He recently announced an A’s “weekend series” which would be played on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. He knows nothing about the game and is too willing to share his ignorance; at best mashed potatoes covered with white gravy.
I downloaded Randy Johnson’s 300th win off of iTunes, and boy am I glad that iTunes has the CSN Bay Area broadcast instead of the MASN, so I get to hear Kuip and Kruk instead of Carpenter and Dibble. Anyways, I decided to try the experiment for myself using that 300th win broadcast, and got these results:
Kuip: 61.94 words / 60 seconds
Kruk: 77.16 words / 60 seconds
While Kuip was a little bit more talkative than the Friday broadcast, he’s still definitely at the low end of the spectrum. The surprising thing is that Kruk would only be in the middle of play by play men, but I don’t know how he’ll rank among color commentators.
Am I the only person that likes Chip Caray and hates Joe Buck (especially for football). I used to like to watch Cubs games on WGN until they let Chip and Steve Stone go.
The day: July 28, 1991
The Scene: Me having to work on a Sunday trying to pass the hours more quickly by listening to a local AM low-watt station of the Dodgers radio network broadcast of that Sunday’s game, Dodgers v. Expos from Dodger Stadium.
The result: Dennis Martinez pitches a perfect game in a 2-0 win against the hated Dodgers.
The prize: Listening to the Dodgers lose in a perfect game AND being able to listen to Vin Scully call the game.
The memory: One of the best of my life.
Props to Bill @58. Is anyone in a position to research old telecasts and do word counts on announcers who are no longer with us? I’d be especially interested in Curt Gowdy, Ned Martin, Ken Coleman and (going WAY back, back, back), Red Barber and Mel Allen.
Dick and Bert are unquestionably the worst pair of broadcasters. They cling to outdated/incorrect ideas about how the game should be played and often repeat the same lines; game after game. It’s borderline unlistenable.
Sounds exactly like Sterling & Waldman to me.
Hey, Yankee fans…Don’t you just want to scream when Michael Kay does …
anything. The worst for me is that he feels compelled to read aloud every graphic displayed on the screen. Thank goodness for 1) mute buttons, and 2) the fact that YES has about 12 announcers and Kay doesn’t do every game.
Another vote for more studies. (Thanks, ajnrules.)
Another vote for Ernie Harwell. (And his longtime partner Paul Carey was no slouch.)
Another vote against the Mad Hungarian. He’s got the classic old ballplayer flaws, and he lacks even a hint of warmth or mirth. Has anyone seen him smile? He smirks regularly, of course. But he traps joy and kills it.
Dan McLaughlin can be smarmy, but I think he’s above average. It’s easier to appreciate him after watching a Sunday broadcast of the Cardinals, which involves Jay Randolph trying to describe what his brain cannot keep up with. Baseball might be too slow, but it runs circles around Jay Randolph.
As a big Reds fan I watch a lot of games announced by George Grande. He has a great announcing voice but he cannot stand dead air. He isconstantly talking and most of it is empty. Never a criticism – everyone is a “great guy”. He also constantly uses the hated phrase – “plays the game the right way”. I enjoy listening to him call a game but he needs to knock off the useless comments. He is much much better than Thom Brennaman though.
#62
couldnt agree more. I find Caray to be humble and polite and full of knowledge when i hear him on rare occasions.
I’m late to this party, but I had to say this: I follow both the A’s and Giants, and I think Duane Kuiper is one of the best announcers out there. Deep voice, great pacing, funny, works well with Krukow, knows the game, is not a homer, all the good stuff. I love his home run call.
I think his brother Glen, however, is much closer to terrible than he is to great. His weird, start-and-stop style really bugs me (“and there’s a shot… INto left field”). I don’t think he calls good plays in the field well at all – I’ll forever remember how he called a great, diving play by Mark Kotsay a few years ago: “Kotsay… Kotsay… Kotsay… KOTSAY!!!” I don’t find him obnoxious or hard to listen to (the Bill King’s replace Vince Cottroneo, or as he’s called on Athletics Nation at times, Wince Monotoneo), I just don’t think he’s very good.
I love it when announcers read the graphics to me. Also, I’m illiterate.
I used to live in Chicago and watched White Sox games regularly, and Harrelson was terrible. (Lukehart80 #57: Trying to make you happy here.) But not as annoying as Chip Caray. Or Joe Buck, but then again nobody could possibly be as annoying as Joe Buck. I’d tell you exactly what I think of Joe Buck, but this is supposed to be a family blog, right?
Chip is terrible. Skip was very good especially when the Braves were bad (most of the 1980s). Harry, though, in his St. Louis and South Side Chicago years, was the best. Announcers will usually mock players on the opposing team for mistakes, but overlook the same mistakes when guys on their own team make them. Harry, to put it mildly, was not like that.
As a Mets fan who frequently floats over to listen to Yankees games on TV and radio I notice that while John Sterling is a chatter box and an ego with him doing all the play-by-play there is always a lot of dead-air going. The bizarre part is the broadcast booth is so isolated in some of the ballparks that when it is dead-air it is truly dead-air. Occasionally an Oakland series will feature the fan who blows the horn and whatnot but the modern parks really make it seem like a silent movie without the orchestra.
Don’t get me started on Waldman and the broadcast. Surely Waldman can just be a reporter rather than a color analyst and Sterling needs a sidekick. There is also a weird thing of bringing in a beat reporter in the booth.
Howie Rose and Wayne Hagin for the Mets on radio have gone on a rapport after a rough beginning last season. They do chat and each have good stories, historical anecdotes on the game, and just seem like nice guys with one guy from the Midwest and the other from Queens.
Gary Cohen probably could win this easily but he has a three-man booth, sometimes four if Ralph Kiner is present, and has two chatter-boxes in Darling and Hernandez. Darling is Xs and Os though is pretty well-versed but Hernandez can go on about anything like an Orson Welles film or the food. Somehow it all works well but now that the team has gone down the tubes there is a lot of chatter not about the game itself. That can be annoying.
Michael Kay feels like he can talk about anything with the Yankees. Because he has a radio show and has made appearances on the Sports Reporters he all of the sudden feels the need to be opinionated. When he throws out questions to his dozens of partners in the booth it can range all over the place between Leiter, Singleton, Cone, and Flaherty. When Jim Kaat was still in the booth usually that never happened, in fact, Kaat’s opinion was the booth’s gospel. He is missed.
I have a love/hate relationship with Scully. He truly is a master wordsmith and his word paintings are amazingly good whether rehearsed or off the cuff. But I can see the play on TV so the painting usually isn’t necessary for on field events.
And from time to time, he will go exceedingly overboard on a single play. I can recall 2 to this day more than 2 decades after I first heard them:
A dodger let a ball get by him for a HR (should have been 1B and error but…) and the team lost 1-0. Critical play for sure but over the next 7-8 innings I heard that regurgitated nearly 3 dozen times. I mean please.
The other was similar in that he complained abut a (dodger) fan interfering with a ball that was called a HR and shouldn’t have been. In this instance not only did I hear him say that 20-25 times but I also had to see the replay almost every time WHICH CLEARLY SHOWED HE WAS MISTAKEN – hard to believe no one in the production said, umm Vin it WAS a HR.
Dan McLaughlin is fine………the more he talks the less “stories about myself” Al Hrabosky can tell.
Precisely what Kevin (#76) said…the more Dan McLaughlin talks, the less Al Hrabosky talks, which is an excellent thing. I subscribed to MLB.TV for the first time this year, and I will usually listen to the other team’s announcers when watching Cardinals games. Hrabosky’s awful.
Complaining about Hawk Harrelson is rather old and tired, isn’t it? Ooo, he’s a homer, he pouts, he whines. Yeah you’re really breaking new ground with that complaint.
He’s a White Sox announcer and White Sox fans like him. Move the EF on already.
Us Giants fans are really spoilt with good commentators. Jon Miller, Kuip and Kruk, all fantastic. What I love most about Kruk and Kuip is that their commentary sounds like you’re listening in on a conversation between friends.
Also I love, L O V E it when Jon Miller does a Vin Scully impersonation, they are priceless. Its a shame that he is stuck with Joe Morgan and Steve Phillips on ESPN because his broadcasts are far better on KNBR.
Lost in all this analysis is this: Vin Scully does a SIMULCAST for the first three innings. So he’s being judged for a radio broadcast against everyone else’s TV call.
Clock Vinny in the 4th and I guarantee you he’ll place in the middle of the pack — and that’s WITHOUT a color man.
RobMoore @ 17: No, Scully (when he is working) simulcasts the first three innings on television and radio, and does the rest of the game on television only. I listen to almost every game on mlb gameday. Scully only works home games and western division games, and has announced he’ll work at least one more year. He has also started skipping nationally televised home games. He’s old, and AFAIK still lives in the west San Fernando Valley, a good 45 minutes drive from Dodger Stadium.
I also suspect My Vinny (as my young niece calls him) has more energy at the start of the game. So if the inning listened to was in the first three, it was a radio inning.
My big reason for loving Scully is that he calls every game as if he’s working for a national broadcaster and the Dodgers are not playing. He is the least partial announcer I’ve ever heard, in any sport. He compliments good plays by both teams. He doesn’t say things like “We need runners here to get a chance to tie.” He might go as far as “The Dodgers need someone else to get on base to bring up the tying run” but it’s still “The Dodgers”, not we. Almost every other local broadcaster I’ve heard, plus many of the cable networks devoted to teams (like WGN, and TNT back when they were broadcasting all the Braves games) it’s obvious who they want to win. That can be very offputting to neutral viewers.
Another big thing about Scully, and probably why he’s so talky, is that he assumes his audience has a reasonable idea of what’s going on. He doesn’t fill his broadcast with things all fans know; he might mention them when pertinent, but he might not. That frees up time for stories.
A third thing about Scully is he asks the questions I’m curious about. If a player leaves the game for no apparent reason, he’ll say something like, “We’ll check with the clubhouse to see if Manny’s okay.”
Yes, Scully’s showing his age. He gets names wrong more frequently. If I’m watching on television, I’m not sure he’s seeing the pitches clearly. And he has started to repeat his stories, making me wonder if he has gone back to the days when he used to work just television for some innings and just radio for others, instead of simulcasting as he does today. But he’s still the best announcer I’ve ever heard, and I cherish every game we get out of him. My hope is that next year I can afford the $100 for mlb.tv to get the audio feed from the television to hear the full nine innings of Scully.
Good point about Scully working solo. Did the article count words per team or words per announcer? But I suspect Scully is more talkative because he knows the secret: baseball has a lot of dull moments. He sees his job to fill those dull moments, because the game itself fills the exciting moments.
I’m not criticizing baseball, but imagine this sequence. The batter fouls a pitch in the dirt. The ump hands the catcher a new ball to toss to the pitcher. He does so. The pitcher doesn’t like the feel of it, and tosses it back. The ump gives the pitcher another ball. The pitcher steps off the mound to work on the ball. He touches the resin bag. He gets back on the rubber and looks for a sign. He shakes off the first two signs, finally accepting the third one. The batter calls for time and adjusts his gloves (hey, Nomar!). There could be 30 seconds of no action on the field. Scully fills that dead time. If the game’s a blowout, some would argue that it’s all dead time. But Scully probably stops a lot of folks from switching the channel.