Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Sports Announcer Column (Pt. 2)
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In the first installment, I discussed the very best announcers, those in my personal Hall of Fame.
But there's also a level just beneath legendary, solid announcers worthy of wider praise, even if they are not worthy of the Pantheon.
Barry Tompkins is really worked to death by FOX Sports Net. I have heard him call Pac-10 football, Pac-10 basketball, boxing, and poker, all on FSN.
But he announces them all ably, and he has a quality I see in Chris Cuthbert and is a common theme in the announcers I like. I'll call it professional enthusiasm. They seem excited, and they seem to be enjoying themselves (think Bill Raftery), without crossing the breach into obnoxiousness (Dick Vitale).
Another announcer with that dignified enthusiasm is the only woman to really make it in national television play-by-play, Pam Ward.
It's gotta be really tough being Ward. Sports has no shortage of sexists, and I'm sure she gets no shortage of hate mail. I used to be a regular visitor to awfulannouncing.com, and while I still pop in from time to time, I was really turned off at how they made her the mascot of college football announcer gaffes.
Don't get me wrong, she should be held to the same level of scrutiny as any announcer. But analyzing the alleged gaffes they would hold up as evidence of her buffoonery were about 20% credible an 80% nitpickish ridiculousness. It's clear that a large segment of the population want her to fail, want to dislike her, and simply seek out examples that affirm their biases.
But the fact is she is enthusiastic, eloquent, and I really get the impression that she is simply capable and confident enough to be herself on air. Compare that two the only female play-by-play callers I know, Suzyn Waldman (Yankees radio broadcaster) and Beth Mowins (ESPNU second-string WAC announcer, doesn't get a lot of work) who both sound like cigar-chomping Fabulous Sports Babe clones who decided they would fit in with the boys by sounding just like them.
Mike Patrick is another others don't like, but I do. I wonder how much his reputation has been tarnished by working so long with Joe Theismann, widely recognized to be the worst football analyst ever ever ever, and Paul Maguire, my own personal write-in vote for that category. Again, I point to the right level of enthusiasm, and a pleasant voice. I'll grant that he can launch some weird non-sequiturs.
If baseball had its own aural icon for me the way football does in Pat Summerall, that would be Vin Scully doing Saturday afternoon baseball on NBC. In a eerie parallel to Summerall, he's also hanging on at age 80, still calling Dodger games west of the Rockies.
There's actually not too many announcers I don't like. I've been listening to Brent Musberger all my life, but "You are looking live!" and calling us "folks" don't really do it for me, never did.
I used to be a Dick Vitale fan when I was a kid. That's about where Vitale is pitched at. Children. He's a broken record of his own cliches and his own four or five opinions. Every Vitale broadcast is like listening to a greatest hits album of a band you don't really like.
Bob Costas is okay, I guess, but the air around him is rather thick with reverence and stale jokes and weird cameo appearances in movies and no thanks.
Dick Enberg was the AFC No. 1 guy while Summerall was the NFC man, and is still at it, but he's failed to make a strong impact on me. I also get the impression that he's a couple seconds behind the action and confused. That's something I can forgive Summerall for, but few others.
But the man who really makes me vomit in terror is Joe Buck. He and Troy Aikman are perfect, cold autonomic matches for each other. It's clear that FOX has him primed to be the next American announcer icon, giving him the lead for both baseball and football, and he's only 38, so we are going to have to hear him for a long, long, long, long time. If he's like other guys on this list, 40 years from now we'll still be hearing him say, "...and Randy Moss the Third has just committed ... a DISGUSTING act." Ugh. No!
Who makes your list? Let me know in the comments.
Kevin,
I share your loathing for Joe Buck, but I really just wanted to comment on how much I loved this line: "Every Vitale broadcast is like listening to a greatest hits album of a band you don't really like."
I don't particularly hate Vitale, but that's a great analogy.