Tim McCarver, that biased broadcaster, has been elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
From here on out, he’ll be referred to as a Hall of Famer.
But I’ll just call him Tim McCarver.
Because in my eyes, he is NOT a Hall of Famer. He is a dumbfounded broadcaster who, for whatever reason, has been on the air way too long.
...He is constantly negative toward the Cardinals and does not have any credibility. I can remember when he referred to former pitcher Donovan Osborne as Donovan “Os-burn.” Even during this past postseason, McCarver said the word strike was made up of five letters. Add all that to his sentence structure — that I’m sure makes English teachers squirm — that’s not excellence.
McCarver was a great ballplayer, I respect him for that. In that genre, he’s still not a Hall of Famer (didn’t have the numbers nor did he stand out), but he was certainly an impacting player for the teams he played on.
Losing out on the award this year is Texas Rangers broadcaster Eric Nadel, who is the best descriptive broadcaster there is; McCarver’s former teammate Mike Shannon, who is the most unique broadcaster in the game; and a large number of others who were so much more deserving.
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1. JJ1986 Posted: December 13, 2011 at 02:21 PM (#4014869)Heh.
Yeah, it's not easy to be wrong in a column about why Tim McCarver doesn't deserve the Frick Award, but this guy manages it.
This is a pretty regular complaint around here but I don't know how accurate it is. Certainly in a very strict term, it IS accurate but it seems to me that within the field of baseball journalism/media the Frick Award is a de facto Hall of Fame.
Does anyone have any interaction with any of the folks who have received this honor? Is that how it is perceived by the recipients?
This drives me nuts. There *is* a "wing" of the HOF where their names are all listed and they give speeches at the HOF induction ceremony. You and all your fellow complainers are harping on a distinction without a difference.
That amused me also. The most poorly structured sentence of this whole rant is the one mocking McCarver's sentence structure.
I find that while I am grading student papers, I am unable to express myself in good grammatical terms. All eloquence leaves my writing, and I end up with short fragments instead. Maybe that's what happened to this dude.
I think "Is a Hall of Famer" vs. "Is not a Hall of Famer" is a pretty big difference.
In short, WTF are you talking about?
...wait, this guy wants to get into a fistfight over how we refer to baseball broadcasters who have won this award?
They used to.
eh, quit complaining
Is completely correct.
He isn't listed as a writer, but there is one.
Last year, the decision to move the writers and broadcasters awards to Saturday at Doubleday Field turned out to be a great decision. The crowd was good, and the inductees, based on their comments, felt like they were the centerpiece to the ceremony and not just an afterthought to the Sunday induction. It was a win-win, as some people like to say these days.
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