Prompted by Harrelson’s unabashed homerism, the Journal decided to watch one nine-inning game played by every major-league team to evaluate its local broadcasters for bias. To keep things simple, we only evaluated home games that the home teams won.
By the rules of our study, anyone with a microphone who used a pronoun like “we,” “us” or “our” to describe the home team was given a citation. Obscure pet names for players were also flagged: The Detroit Tigers announcers, for instance, referred to backup catcher Gerald Laird as “G-Money.” Additional penalties were given for things like excessive moping after miscues or unrestrained glee after big moments. (A Miami Marlins broadcaster marked the end of a lengthy scoreless drought by screaming “Hallelujah!”)
It didn’t take long for the study to confirm what many baseball observers have long expected. During the White Sox game—a 2-1 win against the Texas Rangers—Harrelson and Stone (but mostly Harrelson) made a whopping 104 biased statements.
To put that in perspective, the Cleveland Indians duo of Matt Underwood and Rick Manning ranked second with just 23 biased comments and 24 of the 30 teams had fewer than 10.
“You just made my day,” Harrelson said when told of his place in the biased standings. “That’s the biggest compliment you could give me, to call me the biggest homer in baseball.”
Repoz
Posted: September 25, 2012 at 01:39 PM |
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1. Shredder Posted: September 25, 2012 at 01:50 PM (#4245298)Tangerines have a case.
Harry Caray might have been close to the top on the criteria used in said study, but he got a lot of criticism for dissing Cubs players when they made a mistake.
Yeah. It's like watching the game alongside a very enthusiastic fan.
It irks me when ordinary fans refer to the team they root for as "we" or "us," as some people around here do, and I kinda wish Harrelson wouldn't do that. But rooting for the team you cover is A-OK by me.
Now blueberries make sense, but someone explain gooseberries to me!
Also, I think that the scale as presented overweights the first person plural. If you've decided to do that, of course you're going to do it repeatedly so I think subsequent uses after the first should be regressed somewhat.
That's not a bug. It's a feature.
Ron Santo was this way - absolutely 100% a fan in the booth. His anguished groans at every Cub failure are etched in my memory, right along side Harry's "aw he POPPPPPPPED it up" whenever a Cub in the 1980s popped out with men on base.
Given that Hawk won in a rout, it wouldn't make a difference, but I think a true accounting would also have to take points away from the total for criticizing the home team. In that Sox booth, I assume that's what Stone is there for, given that he never really held back when he was with the Cubs booth (and it helped get him fired).
Stretch!
The Angels announcers always have to say "big fly" when an Angels player hits a HR which I find annoying for some reason... but not as annoying as Hudler was (or is to Royals fans now)
Or have it fall short of the wall?
Or go foul?
If so, how does he handle it?
Wonder Dog is so bad he takes the joy out of a Hawk Harrelson thread.
Which would you rather hear?
"You can put it on the board -- YES!"
or
"Pilot to bombardier -- open up the bomb bay doors!"
That part of Harrelson is fine with me. Homerism is just a style to me, you can do it well or badly.
The more objectionable part of Hawk is 1) his ######## and pouting at umpires or perceived lack of "playing the game right," 2) his lack of understanding of what wins baseball games (he loves smallball tactics), 3) his overreliance on catchphrases (I think it's time for a Simpsons-style "Hawk 3000").
But overall, when I watch a Sox game on mlb.tv, I always listen to him instead of the opposing team announcers.
I think it's called a 'peel'.
In the games that I've seen, he usually waits until the ball is safely over the wall before starting his spiel. So it's not like Berman and his "back back back back", where it might be back back back to the left fielder 20 feet in front of the warning track.
I do too, out of curiosity. I think I would hate it if he did my team's games.
Let me put it this way: I dumped MLB.TV because the announcers for every team with the exception of the White Sox, Red Sox, and Dodgers just plain suck. Maybe I'm used to Harrelson, Santo, Brickhouse, Harry Caray, etc. but baseball needs enthusiasm out of their announcers and there is too darned little of it.
Personally, as a non-Sox fan, I kinda like him.
Opposition hits a bloop single: "Great pitch, that's a shame for <A's pitcher>, do everything right and just get unlucky"
A's hit a bloop single: "Great at-bat by <A's hitter>, manages to fight it off and dump it into right field, great piece of hitting there, going with the pitch"
Hearing him say so many good things about bad A's plays/players enrages me more than any opposition announcer ever could.
Not the same, but for the last out of games now (Sox wins, of course), his new catchphrase is "And this game is....OVAH!" Last night, the last out of the game was a grounder to Hudson at 2b that he bobbled, and the catchphrase went "And this game is...bobbled. OVAH" I laughed.
The more objectionable part of Hawk is 1) his ######## and pouting at umpires or perceived lack of "playing the game right," 2) his lack of understanding of what wins baseball games (he loves smallball tactics), 3) his overreliance on catchphrases (I think it's time for a Simpsons-style "Hawk 3000").
He's started keeping imaginary scores, and updates you on that. Like last night, there was a blown out call that cost the Sox a run. At the end of the inning, he said something like "It's 1-0 Cleveland, but it should be 1-1." He gave that updated score multiple times until the Sox took the lead.
Basically a good local announcer is hard and roots for the local team while being as impartial as possible when it comes to the other team. One thing you don't see is an announcer rooting for the local team and ripping the other team, that is something that should be frowned upon, and also blind homerism should be frowned upon.
The most objectionable part of Hawk (which your first point touches on) is that he's an unlikeable, unpleasant person to have to spend three hours with. Everything else is window dressing.
His constant whining about balls and strikes has made him unlistenable.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned an incident sometime within the last three years. It was repeated with Hawk's call several times on ESPN and MLB Network. I think a left fielder robbed a home run from a White Sox player. Harrelson just said,"No! No! No!" as if a rogue robot was destroying his golf clubs.
I have MLB Extra Innings and avoid Hawk and Mark Grace whenever possible. The Rays are on the unbiased end but Dewayne Staats ends every loss with,"We hope you enjoyed the broadcast if not the result." I realize I'm more offended by stupid rather than mere bias.
With MLB.tv and Extra Innings, more out-of-town fans have access to other teams' announcers on both TV and radio. It's too much to hope that this might weed out the extreme homers.
I still wish they would've kept John Rooney after the '05 season though. Ed Farmer & DJ have this weird, goofy kind of chemistry but Farmer's so damn dry it gets annoying sometime.
I think the old Rizzuto/White/Messer broadcast team did a great job of striking this balance. Rizzuto was the unabashed homer, but always in a pleasant, funny way. He never ####### or criticized. White was the straight-man foil to Rizzuto, and Messer was the bland professional.
Dan McLaughlin's "Look what I found!" every single time a pitcher successfully fields a comebacker always makes me cringe.
I thought Messah was FAR more biased than the Scooter. Rizzuto unabashedly rooted for the Yankees but he would at least acknowledge good plays by the other team and admit when the Yankees were the beneficiary of a bad call. Messer never did either
The ultimate in this was Fosse making excuses for Moss not catching that easy ground ball on Saturday in the 14th that would have gotten the A's out of the inning. Cue shot my ass.
The catchphrases don't even bother me so much anymore. He's been doing them so long that they're almost like white noise to me. It's the pleading ("ball four, base hit") and how he gets when the game is close late. Hawk didn't sound so much like a PBP guy in the bottom of the ninth inning when the Sox had the tying run on first. The batter check swung and the catcher motioned to first as though he was going to try and pick off the runner. Hawk's rattled noises on both the check swing and false throw to first made him sound more like a parent getting finicky in the passenger seat as they teach their kid how to drive rather than a guy being paid to call a professional baseball game.
Ugh, exactly. And he takes it as a personal affront if the Sox can't get in a guy from third with one out. If that happens early in the game and it stays close, you'll have to hear that passive-aggressive "We've had our chances, but it's 3-3..." whining at the end of every inning.
I guess I like him well enough when the Sox are winning (because that keeps his unpleasantness to a minimum), and not when they're losing.
I like being able to hear him call the last few outs of Buehrle's perfect game, and I would have liked to hear him call the last game of the 2005 World Series. I could do without the other 4000 or so games he's worked.
Oh, my!
Maybe moreso because the team can't hit.
That is accurate, most clueless announcer in baseball.
I always think that, until MLB TV forces me to watch fox, or listen to another team. And then I realize how lucky we are in STL.
Dan and Al can be annoying, especially when they repeat stories we've all heard 20 times, but they do a good job of doing things like criticizing cardinals players for not hustling, or making mental mistakes, and regularly second-guess the managers. Not always for the right reason, but it's clear they are free to speak their minds and aren't held to regurgitate any kind of party line.
They very regularly say things like "Cardinals caught a break on that pitch" when a strike thrown to a cardinals batter is called a ball, and they usually try to tell both sides of a story when there's a story. They aren't Jack Buck, but you don't see that kind of "we're homers but we call it straight" from guys like Brennaman or Harrelson.
Although by the metrics in this article, if they said "wow, that was a strike, but the umpire called it a ball- *we* caught a break", they'd score higher on homerism, so whatever.
I'm a huge fan of Al. and if the truth be said, Dan has gotten better over the past two years or so, but it's hard for me to get past how horrible he was for such a long time. Not just the boring monotone announcing style, but the fact that he is not that baseball savvy.
Shannon is very good at doing that, he has no problem saying when the umpires seem to be having an off night, regardless of which team it's helping.
oooooh, BIG word
he whines like a 2 year old who needs a nap. it's not that he's a homer. it's that he comes off as an a-hole
BUT
he's better than milo hamilton or his 2 maroon assistants
The color is actually named after the fruit!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orange_(colour)
Crap like that.
Agreed. Horton has improved by leaps and bounds, the only drawback is that he's added the old time fogeyism that he didn't have when he first started. Before he used to defer to the modern player and not pull the "in my day crap" but more recently he has started to do that a lot more frequently. (and of course his Whitey worship is about as annoying as Al's hatred of the Cubs)
I think the Hawk/AJ parallel is right. Non-Sox fans ##### and moan about his homerism, and he just eats it up. He sustains himself on the hatred. I'm not terribly attached to Hawk, but hearing the complaints make me like him more.
The MLB.tv era puts it in a weird perspective. "This guy is on the White Sox's payroll, and he's calling games for White Sox fans. I am not a White Sox fan, and I can't believe he doesn't make more of an effort to appeal to me."
This, exactly. I have no problems with broadcasters being homers; I expect it, to a degree. Hawk's just annoying at the best of times, and when things are going wrong, I just want to punch him in the face.
I wonder if Stoney does too. God damn the Cubs to hell for running him (Stoney) out of the booth.
And yeah, I'd take Hawk over Milo. Back in his Cubs days, they did this thing where Harry and Stone would do innings 1-3 and 7-9 on TV, and switch to the radio for 4-6. Milo did the radio for 1-3 and 7-9. Milo was horrid enough that when the 4th rolled around, my dad and I would mute the TV and turn the radio on.
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