Dibble stinks, but isn’t what the team did to him kind of, well, cheap?

If Dibble was hired to be yet one more variation of Howard Stern, then yeah, firing him's wrong.... but if he were hired to be an actual broadcaster, then tossing him overboard was long overdue.

Bring back John Lowenstein...

Is there any other reason to hire Dibble than that?

My suspicion is that after he tried to embarrass those two women, the team told him that he was treading on thin ice and he had to be on his best behavior. The Strasburg thing was clearly the final straw.

His firing was certainly not shocking, and yes, it was fair. The TV color analyst is one of a baseball team's most prominent representatives of itself to the outside world; the announcers to a great extent reflect the team.

When you're someone like the Yankees, you can get away with having a total clown like John Sterling doing the games on the radio, but the Nationals desperately need every fan they can get. They just can't afford to have a guy on there who's going to act like a stupid neanderthal and drive away potential fans.

It will be intriguing to see who comes in to be the Nats' TV analyst in 2011. There aren't very many of these openings; at the same time, Washington is still perceived as a baseball graveyard by many outsiders, and without Strasburg for probably all of 2011, ratings will likely be lackluster unless the team somehow suddenly gels into an over-.500 unit (which isn't impossible, but highly unlikely). Chances are it will be some ex-major leaguer who can't find an opening anywhere else.

Bring back John Lowenstein...

I'm apathetic to this idea.

I have heard Dibble a few times; it seems obvious to me that if he wants to make a career in media that he should be a talk radio guy, not an in-the-booth guy.

#2 I have to believe that Dibble had been warned. He'd called out Strasburg before and the Nationals were clearly unhappy.

Thing is that Dibble just isn't aware enough to understand a warning that isn't extremely explicit.

To respond to your question. It seems to me that Dibble was fired because somebody lashed out in response to the injury to SS. Totally understandable.

But at heart Dibble wasn't fired for what he said so much as for making himself a convenient target at the wrong time.

So in the end I'm slightly conflicted. I'm glad he's no longer in the booth. I'm just not happy that he's fired for being an idiot at the wrong time rater than being fired for being an idiot.

Did they smash him repeatedly upside the head with a steam iron or some similarly hard object?

No?

Then yes, they were fair to Rob Dibble -- more than fair, really.

#6 I think Dibble could stand being on some kind of time delay with a producer monitoring. Otherwise he's just going to bounce from incident to incident. I don't think he's clever enough to handle the blowback that a shock jock approach will bring.

#6 I think Dibble could stand being on some kind of time delay with a producer monitoring. Otherwise he's just going to bounce from incident to incident. I don't think he's clever enough to handle the blowback that a shock jock approach will bring.

So he's too dumb to be a shock jock and too mouthy to be an analyst? Sounds like hard times for Dibs. ;-)

Someone in my comments proposed Jim Bowden. In many ways, that'd be a perfect role for him. Obviously, it ain't happenin', but...

I think Carp is here to stay. I kinda wish they'd move Slowes to the TV side. He's quite good. But sometimes the chemistry he has with Jags is so good that they end up going into rain-delay theater mode while the game's still going on.

I read somewhere (comment? msg board?) that the Nats had pursued Orel Hershiser before. He's decent enough. But you'd need a backup to cover for when he was with ESPN.

Keep in mind, too, that his comments were made on his XM show, not in any role related to the team. I imagine that that was a source of tension for the two sides, too.

Other than the women thing (which, truthfully, was a tad overblown) he hadn't stepped into any landmines on the Nats broadcasts. Other than his general suckiness, at least.

Other than his general suckiness, at least.

Yes, but he DID suck. Not just generally, either. Firing him for this reason seems about as fair as you can get.

There was also the dick waving competition he tried to get into with Ray Knight after one of Strasburg's starts. I'm guessing -- only guessing -- that he wasn't really a team player when it came to the broadcasts.

I also heard the story that Hershiser turned down the Nats from Loverro. I don't where he got it. Loverro also believes Scott Boras had a hand in this. Firing Dibble is a small enough bone to throw to the agent of your two brightest young future stars. Signing Pena instead of re-signing Dunn is not.

Objectively, Dibble was more informative than Paciorek. However, I didn't find it necessary to turn off the sound on Wimpy because I couldn't stand his crudeness.

The Orioles have trotted out Eddie Murray and Brady Anderson as third people in the booth. They've both got a long way to go. You would almost have to say they would have to spend an apprenticeship in the minors to develop the skills, but that's too much work for too little money for a former major leaguer. Being third man may be the next best thing for training.

I like Glanville from Baseball Tonight. And Justin Maxwell may not have a playing job in baseball for very long.

On a non Dibble Nats related note: Nyjer Morgan has been suspended eight games for his role in the brawl, which sure seems like a hell of a lot to me.

I believe that makes a total of 15 games he has been suspended in the last couple of weeks.

If Dibble drives away fans then yes, he has to go. I'm not sure that he does. He may be a complete jerk, but I think he's an entertaing jerk. Most announcers are boring. Dibble is many things, but boring is not one of them.

I think Chris Singleton is decent at times and would make a decent color guy. Doug Glanville would work. Aaron Boone actually played for the Nats.

I heard Glanville on "Fresh Air" with Terry Gross while he was promoting his book, and I think he'd be a good choice if he had interest in coming to Washington. Trivia note: Glanville hit the first walk-off homer in Citizens Bank Park history in April 2004 against the Nats' predecessors, the Montreal Expos.

And there's always Sexy Rexy.

I don't understand why people want to move the good announcers to television. I suppose in most cases more people are watching on television than listening to the radio, though I'm not really sure about that, because an awful lot of people are out and about in the 7-9 pm window, at least. Besides that, though, it requires a better broadcaster for radio than television. On television, the viewer can see what's going on. An excellent play by play man's talents are almost completely wasted on television.

Why is there a picture of Dibble pointing at the boobs of Johnny Damon's woman and if so then why is there no caption to it?

TV ain't big enough for both Kenny Powers AND Rob Dibble.

I stuck up for Dibble in the other thread, but he did, in his talk-radio days, say one of the dumbest things I ever heard. He was asked about an upcoming El Duque-Randy Johnson matchup and said he would go Duque all the way, because Unit was "worthless in big games". So maybe he's not suited for pundit duty either.

#10 Pretty much my take.

Sean is right. At least he brings something to the table. I'll take him over bland and stupid any day.

I'd be happier with smart and would settle for witty.What I primarily get is cliche spouting from a guy who sounds bored. And doesn't have a good voice. I love baseball but I can't count the times I've had to change away from a game because I knew I was going to throw something at my TV if I didn't.

You know, the NFL network isn't wonderful but even their worst guys just make me roll my eyes. Is it really that tough to find somebody who won't drive me away while retaining the casual fan?

He was mentioned earlier in the thread, but I'm pretty sure Kenny Powers would be the best color guy in baseball history. There's a potentially great show in the mystery science theater mode there.

Dibble was incredibly negative on whoever the Nats were playing (though I mostly know what he was like against the Mets). It was totally uncalled for, and it seemed to ignore that in any given Nats broadcast, half the viewers are likely to be fans of the other team (transplants to DC, viewers on Extra Innings, etc.). Do Nats fans really enjoy Dibble accusing Jose Reyes of taking PED? I wrote the network after that one.

He was unpleasant to watch. I don't think it was a discipline issue. He was just a douche.