What's with killing annoucers ?

[Lathum]

While I think some announcers are annoying ( paging Dicky V ) as a whole I think there are more good annoucers then bad ones. I think people have this perception that the guys step into the booth and start talking. They do alot of prep work and I don't think the job is as easy as people think it is. I think the announcers make it an overall more enjoyable experience to watch the game. OK, you can jump all over me now.

[BigJohn&TheLions]

Why would I want to jump all over you. I don't find you attractive at all, even in that french maid outfit with the afro wig. :D

[Lathum]

Why would I want to jump all over you. I don't find you attractive at all, even in that french maid outfit with the afro wig. :D
cartman PROMISED he wouldn't post those pictures

[JeeberD]

Hey, that reminds me... :D



WARNING!!! CRAPPY PICTURE PHONE PICS AHEAD!!!!



http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/6845/lathum2pr.jpg

http://img353.imageshack.us/img353/3862/candl9dl.jpg

[Lathum]

wow, those are crappy

[Lathum]

but it was a good time.

[JeeberD]

Hey man, I gave a warning...

[samifan24]

While I think some announcers are annoying ( paging Dicky V ) as a whole I think there are more good annoucers then bad ones. I think people have this perception that the guys step into the booth and start talking. They do alot of prep work and I don't think the job is as easy as people think it is. I think the announcers make it an overall more enjoyable experience to watch the game. OK, you can jump all over me now.

Broadcasters worth their salt put time and effort into preparing for the game. The more prepared a guy is, the better his broadcast will probably be. You have to do your homework on the players, teams, matchup, etc. It takes a lot of time but it's worth it when someone thanks you for doing a quality job.

[gstelmack]

I don't care how much prep work they do, if they talk too much to the point that their broadcast becomes more important than the game itself, someone has messed up (maybe the producer, maybe someone higher up). The announcer then takes the heat for it.

I for one am getting sick and tired of announcers who think their backstory or whoever has decided to visit the booth is more important than the action on the field/court/ice.

[saldana]

my biggest bitch about announcers is how bad some of the local radio or tv guys have lost their objectivity. it doesnt matter how bad the home team is stinking up the joint, these announcers just gloss over everything and make excuses instead of calling it like it is.

additionally, i am tired of stupid catchphrases. if you are in the NY area or have MLB.com radio, try listening to the guy that does the yankees games. he actually has a trademark on his homerun call, which he goes into ad nauseum(it is quite funny when the ball doesnt go out), and then he has a stupid saying for each individual yankee when then hit a homerun, a really stupid one if they hit two in a row, and an exceptionally annoying trademarked line for when they win the game...the whole broadcast is a string of catchphrases...from first pitch to last swing, the entire time i want to choke someone.

[samifan24]

I don't care how much prep work they do, if they talk too much to the point that their broadcast becomes more important than the game itself, someone has messed up (maybe the producer, maybe someone higher up). The announcer then takes the heat for it.

I for one am getting sick and tired of announcers who think their backstory or whoever has decided to visit the booth is more important than the action on the field/court/ice.

I totally agree. I worked with a kid in the league this summer who went on and on during the OPENING DAY game about he called hockey last winter, etc. A guy hits a foul ball down the line and the kid says that it narrowly misses his car but that wouldn't have mattered much because he drives a Daewoo. I'm sitting there in shock because the kid never stopped talking and kept talking about himself. Hello!? No one cares about you. Shut up and broadcast the damn game.

[panerd]

St. Louis has Mike Shannon who is clearly in the tank every game by the 4th inning. I think KMOX doesn't realize how popular Cardinal baseball will be no matter who is announcing and that people loved Jack Buck not Shannon. His "Get up, get up" homerun call is so bad that I feel sorry for our city when they carry the radio call on show's like Sportscenter.

[sterlingice]

While I think some announcers are annoying ( paging Dicky V ) as a whole I think there are more good annoucers then bad ones. I think people have this perception that the guys step into the booth and start talking. They do alot of prep work and I don't think the job is as easy as people think it is. I think the announcers make it an overall more enjoyable experience to watch the game. OK, you can jump all over me now.
Well, I think there's a significant portion of announcer who doesn't do much homework and is just lazy ("Bret Farve, he's the best QB in the league and he's playing against Tom Brady, also the best QB in the league, who beat Peyton Manning, also the best QB in the league..." type thing). A subsection of this is the substitute-being-loud-for-being-knowledgeable, think Madden, Vitale, Walton, etc. So, not only do they not add very much insight, but they're loud and obnoxious to boot.

additionally, i am tired of stupid catchphrases. if you are in the NY area or have MLB.com radio, try listening to the guy that does the yankees games. he actually has a trademark on his homerun call, which he goes into ad nauseum(it is quite funny when the ball doesnt go out), and then he has a stupid saying for each individual yankee when then hit a homerun, a really stupid one if they hit two in a row, and an exceptionally annoying trademarked line for when they win the game...the whole broadcast is a string of catchphrases...from first pitch to last swing, the entire time i want to choke someone.
This is one that really bugs me. It seems like there has been a trend towards trying to get on Sportscenter. The problem is people do it because it works. More and more announcers have some trademarked stupid call and ESPN obliges them by putting it on SC so it's not going to go away. I never knew about the Yankees guy until they started playing his "THAAAAAAA YANKEEEEES WINNNNNN" which makes him sound like a braying jackass. But everyone knows about him because Sportscenter can't resist putting him on.

That's not to say there aren't good announcers. But I think it varies a lot by sport and location. I think most baseball announcers are pretty good because a large chunk of them have been announcing for quite a while. I really miss Steve Stone on the Cubs broadcasts as he really knew his stuff and made you learn about baseball- he could spot pitching trends and predict pitches as well as add lots of insight about the inner workings of baseball. John Miller, of the Giants and Sunday Night Baseball, is about as good a play-by-play guy as there is. Joe Morgan doesn't add much to SNB but it's still a good team on the basis of Miller alone. I know some of the Canadians don't like them, but I love the Gary Thorne/Bill Clement NHL tandem that makes up ESPN's number 1 team and Darren Pang adds entertainment to whatever team he's on. I think college hoops also has some good guys on it, but that varies a lot on the team and station.

SI

[terpkristin]

Who's who in the pictures?

My gripe with TV announcers in particular is their need to talk incessantly. It's not like radio, where the announcers quite often give a play-by-play. That can be useful, though I understand that on TV you don't necessarily need it since you're watching it. But still, announcers feel that, I think, if they shut their mouths, that the world will end or something. I want to know what's going on with the game. I don't care about a player's history or his parents or whatever else useless drivel the announcers use to fill the time. I want to know the status of the game, who has the ball, and what they're doing with it. I ADORE watching Mexican coverage of soccer matches. I haven't the FOGGIEST of what they're saying, but judging by the frequency I hear the players' names being mentioned, I can only imagine they're giving the play by play--sometimes, from the far angle, it's hard to tell who has the ball, or what the others on the field are doing (for example, in soccer, if the TV is zoomed to a player, the announcers might tell us something useful about others moving around the field looking for the pass or a setup that is going on, or who's nearing offside positions)--so this type of play by play can be useful, even when watching the game.

I don't care what a college ball player is majoring in. I don't care what their parents do or what high school he went to. If you want to read me his current stats, in lieu of flashing them on the screen, that's fine. But don't tell me what his dog's name is and why his favorite flavor of ice cream is mint chocolate chip. Either tell me something useful to the game CURRENTLY or shut up. On TV, you DON'T have to speak all the time.

That is all. ;)

/tk

[Lathum]

The top one is the Dr. Jekyl version of me.

The bottom one is Cartman with me looming in the background.

[JonInMiddleGA]

I for one am getting sick and tired of announcers who think their backstory or whoever has decided to visit the booth is more important than the action on the field/court/ice.

I think part of the problem may be that, well, given the saturation of broadcasts today, some of those things are can be more interesting than the 5th inning of a Royals/Mariners game in July.

I can watch or listen to as many as 13 different baseball games every night all summer. You can only do so many routine innings without getting a little batty, but little things, little distractions make some of the games worth seeing/hearing regardless of what's happening on the field.

Case in point -- earlier this summer, I'm listening to the Dodgers game on mlb.com, there's a very long in-the-booth segment with Jaime Jarrin who was celebrating his anniversary with the club that day. That's probably the single most entertaining thing I've heard on radio all year, a compelling enough conversation that I felt like I got my whole subscription worth just from hearing it (okay, I'm a former broadcaster who enjoyed hearing his backstory which I'd never really heard before, sue me).

Or hearing This Day In Dodgers History, on the anniversary of Koufax's first major league start. Hell, that mention & the nostalgia is brought was worth listening to another game, I actually find myself hoping I haven't missed the day's history fact every time I tune in.

I know I probably don't listen/watch games like the average viewer, but I don't think I'm alone on some of this stuff either. I've heard quite a few people talk about enjoying Don Sutton stories or Skip Caray wisecracks or whatever as much as they enjoy the game itself.

Don't get me wrong here, I believe a good baseball game is about as entertaining as sports can get ... but every game isn't a good game, so to maintain a consistent audience, you have to find ways to keep up the entertainment factor. Granted, a lot of announcers have lost perspective on when to "be entertaining" vs when to let the action carry the show, but it ain't all bad either.

[samifan24]

Don't get me wrong here, I believe a good baseball game is about as entertaining as sports can get ... but every game isn't a good game, so to maintain a consistent audience, you have to find ways to keep up the entertainment factor. Granted, a lot of announcers have lost perspective on when to "be entertaining" vs when to let the action carry the show, but it ain't all bad either.

Baseball is a very entertaining game. There *are* too many broadcasters who feel that they have to keep talking to keep things interesting. Let the game keep it interesting. It's how you tell the game. A good broadcaster knows when to talk about a player's backstory or something else when the game itself isn't enough to hold the audience's attention. A good broadcaster can call an entertaining game without making the broadcast about them.