I don't mind homerism at all. Well, at least not in dosages that the reds guys usually give me. What bothers me is when the announcers generally don't seem to be enjoying what they are doing. If it's so damned hard, step aside and let somebody else take a crack. I'm sure you can find a 9-5 some place that won't be as hard as watching the reds on a nightly basis.
"Even a bad day at the ballpark beats the snot out of most other good days. I'll take my scorecard and pencil and beer and hot dog and rage at the dips and cheer at the highs, but I'm not ever going to stop loving this game and this team and nobody will ever take that away from me." Roy Tucker October 2010
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
Yes.. case in point.. Last year, Marty made it his mission to mention that Stubbs was leading the league in strikeouts .. He would mention it about 100 times/game it seemed.
Even when the team is doing well.. Marty seems to take pleasure whenever Homer, Bruce, or Stubbs fails to "come through". He also enjoyed running Chapman down the previous two years.. Marty obviously thought Chapman was a "Waste of money" and took great pleasure at beating into the ground Chapman's control problems when they happened".
Even this year, I've had to turn the game off at times.. One game, the Reds had bases loaded in an early inning and didn't score.. Marty reminded us of that failure about 8 more times before I turned off the radio. He can not retire soon enough.
[Phil ] Castellini celebrated the team's farm system and noted the team had promising prospects who would one day be great Reds -- and then joke then they'd be ex-Reds, saying "of course we're going to lose them". #SellTheTeamBob
Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!
“In the same way that a baseball season never really begins, it never really ends either.” - Lonnie Wheeler, "Bleachers, A Summer in Wrigley Field"
The Baseball Emporium - Books & Things.
The Baseball Bookstore
http://tsc-sales.com/
http://tscsales.blogspot.com/
http://silverscreenbooks.com/
I'm wondering if they'd done Marty if he'd have had a negative score?
Im suprised the Indians were second. I give Rick Manning credit however when the Indians play badly he lets the viewers know it.
"Losing feels worse than winning feels good." -Vin Scully
I don't mind a little homerism when I'm watching a Reds broadcast (they should be rooting for the home team since that's the target audience) but our guys are pretty much Switzerland when you compare them to the broadcasters in Chicago. The White Sox guys especially are HORRIBLE with their bias to the point of obnoxiousness although the Cubs guys can be bad at times too.
The Orioles guys are pretty awesome for the most part and I bet they're enjoying their job covering the games this year with all the Orioles success. They haven't had that there in a long time!
"I tried to play golf, but I found out I wasn't very good." -Joey Votto on his offseason hobby search
An MLB.com reporter asked what one thing Votto couldn’t do. “I can’t skate or play hockey,” Votto said. “Well, I can skate ... but I can’t stop.”
Is the we/us thing just a pet peeve among those who studied broadcasting and/or believe in a proper, by-the-book technique? Or is there more to it than that? Because by and large, I fall into the "royal we" speak 90% of the time, so do my friends, and really, unless there's some sort of strong agreement among professional athletes that abhors fans/broadcasters including themselves with the actual players, I don't see the harm. They're really the only ones in a position to take offense.
I'll throw my lot in with those who don't mind some homerism. I'd get annoyed if it were blind homerism, but if there's such a thing as being "competently biased," then that's what I want. Root for the home team, but have enough baseball knowledge that your opinions are well-informed and your fact-reporting is accurate; and most of all, rooting for the home team doesn't mean ignoring their shortcomings or the strengths of the opposition.
I like the idea of being told the story of a baseball game by someone who is a fan. But only if they're the good kind of fan. Intelligent and knowledgeable, able to avoid trite cliches and internal inconsistencies (I hate it when an announcer decrees something one inning, then the opposite is suddenly true the next; Bobby Valentine did this about a half dozen times on Sunday, and I truly wonder if he can hear himself talk), and of course, a bit of cleverness doesn't hurt. You know: a fan like me. I'd absolutely love to sit next to myself on a couch and watch a baseball game with me. The conversation would be scintilating.
I digress.
Anyway, thanks to MLB Network showing so many games per week where they pick up the local feeds (and they only do one "national" game per week), the past 3 years have been awesome for sampling all the different flavors of broadcasters. And I've taken advantage, and come away with the impression that our guys are significantly more palatable than most. They get "competent bias" right.
Except Thom. And it's not the "bias" part that he gets wrong. When Marty gets cranky, I'm usually cranky, too, and I'm confident our crankiness is justified. But when Thom gets cranky, I just want to give baby his bottle so he'll stop making that horrific noise. How is it possible that this has been his job for so many years, and he still seems to know less about baseball than us? I mean, it'd be one thing if he was acting dumb to set up his Expert Color Analyst, but I'm pretty sure that isn't it.
I digress again. End communication...
Rick
Last edited by FlightRick; 09-26-2012 at 12:18 PM.
Jim Kelch.................no.
Jim Kelch and Chris Welsh is easily the Reds best announcing duo, and I'd go far as to say one of the best in baseball.
“I don’t care,” Votto said of passing his friend and former teammate. “He’s in the past. Bye-bye, Jay.”
Board Moderators may, at their discretion and judgment, delete and/or edit any messages that violate any of the following guidelines: 1. Explicit references to alleged illegal or unlawful acts. 2. Graphic sexual descriptions. 3. Racial or ethnic slurs. 4. Use of edgy language (including masked profanity). 5. Direct personal attacks, flames, fights, trolling, baiting, name-calling, general nuisance, excessive player criticism or anything along those lines. 6. Posting spam. 7. Each person may have only one user account. It is fine to be critical here - that's what this board is for. But let's not beat a subject or a player to death, please. |