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I was cruising through MLB.tv last night for the first time in awhile and realized I had no idea which broadcast I wanted to listen on every stream. I figured it might be useful to make a discerning baseball sicko's guide to local broadcast teams. Cubs  Television Team: Jon "Boog" Sciambi play by play, Jim "J.D." DeShaies analyst, Taylor McGregor sideline, and a Rotating Cast of Thousands Overview Jim Deshaies is a very good analyst, someone who has some levity but also decent insight into pitching. I personally find Boog to be kind of annoying, constantly making dumb self-deprecating jokes and an attempt to fit in angles and stories that seem more suited to a national broadcast. The games with just Boog and JD are mainly fine. The main problem, though, is that since moving to Marquee, the broadcast often jams a third person into the booth, usually a rotation of Ryan Dempster who is surprisingly boring, Doug Glanville who is ok, and Rick Sutcliffe who is drunk. This year, they've added Joe Girardi, who will not shut the gently caress up at all and makes me desperate for some team to give him another shot to get him off my television. On Sundays, Sciambi calls the national game for ESPN radio, and is replaced by radio voice Pat Hughes or Beth Mowins who are both fine. The sideline reporting is fine, though there's too much of McGregor interviewing some Cubs functionary that I have no interest in. They also interview Ross once a week during the game-- I have never found anything interesting or insightful about an in-game manager interview. Are they annoying homers? Not much more than you'd expect from a standard home broadcast. Expect a lot of paeans to Wrigley Field and These Special Fans. Novelties The Cubs show the 7th inning stretch every game, even if it's just a video of Harry Carey. Does anyone have a distracting or annoying voice? Boog Sciambi sounds like a person trying to do a generic "announcer voice." Would I recommend this broadcast to the casual viewer? I don't think the Marquee Sports broadcast is very good, but it's also not unwatchable. A solid C-. Radio Team: Pat Hughes play by play, Ron "Coom Dawg" Coomer analyst, Zach Zaidman pre-postgame/fill-in Overview Hughes is going to the Hall of Fame this summer as the Ford C. Frick award winner. After 40 years in major league broadcasting starting with the Twins and the Brewers, he became the Cubs play by play man in 1996, partnering with Ron Santo. Hughes is what you would expect from a traditional baseball radio guy, which formed a counterpart to Santo, whose analysis often involved him just making guttural noises or screaming NOOOOOOO when the Cubs did something tha the Cubs usually do. In 2013, he was paired with another Ron, Ron Coomer, a genial baseball oaf. Hughes's call is classic and sort of old fashioned. Coomer provides pretty useless analysis (he loves when hitters go the other way) but is also often telling an anecdote from his many years as a baseball Guy or describing a sandwich he has recently eaten. I am irrational about Coomer and love everything about him, but I also listen to dozens of hours of Cubs radio every year at work or in my car. The entire broadcast is what you'd expect from the Cubs-- kind of corny, pitched to 80 year-old midwesterners. Are they annoying homers? Well, they are definitely homers in the way you'd expect, spinning every horrible AAAA guy the Cubs have trotted out there to save money as a breakout candidate, and Hughes describing Wrigley Field like it's the Smithsonian. Novelties Like on TV, you will hear the 7th inning stretch even if it is being butchered by the guy who was in rookie of the year. Hughes loves to describe the uniforms. A lot of the broadcast involves listening to Zaidman cackling off mic after any vaguely joke-ish statement like he is Robert De Niro in Cape Feare. Both Coomer and Hughes appear in a bunch of very stupid local commercials, the most notable is Coomer shilling for a product called "Funkaway" and Hughes touting the Village of Bedfork Park as close to railroads and sources of water like he is describing it to a nineteenth-century homesteader. Like most radio broadcasts, every thing the Cubs do is sponsored by some entity. Do I recommend this broadcast to casual listeners? I love the Cubs radio broadcast, I think Pat Hughes is one of the best radio guys in the game, and the concept of Ron Coomer and everything he does and says is extremely funny to me. If you can't stand Ron Coomer talking about how "i've gotta get one a' dem meatball sandwiches" after saying that "happer's really looking for something to hit here" then it's your loss.
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Apr 1, 2023 01:56
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 04:01 |
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