Harry Kalas -- Time to go?

I know what you are saying, Smash, but that is one error out of many things you say in a game over 150 games. It's going to happen.

 

<i>You think the average fan throws up his hands when Kalas makes an error and says "that's it, the game is ruined, i'm watching something else"?</i>


You think the average fan doesn't hear an announcer misidentify the guy circling the bases and say, "What the fuck is he talking about?"

I don't think fans throw their hands up and switch off the game when a shortstop makes an error, but they aren't happy about it, either. And if the shortstop makes a lot of errors, they start thinking the team needs a new shortstop.

 

It's a long deep drive, and that ball is outta....

Harry, wait. It was caught at the wall.


I love Harry, but he seems to be losing it. When he is on he can call a hell of a game. Scott Graham was a great announcer, too bad the Phillies let him go.

 

Look at a guy like John Sterling, he makes mistakes, yet no one on here points any of that out.

Oh, wait...

 

Chip Caray is one of the all-time worst. A smarmy, smug, lilting-voiced fuckdrip and the kind of guy who thinks he's the funniest and most interesting guy at a party.

 

The Sarge has gotten better as the season's gone on. What I like is he's not afraid to call a Phillie out when he does something stupid or fails to come through in the clutch.

Scott Graham to me was one of those guys that liked hearing his own voice. It's rare when I listen to a game on the radio, but I'd think twice about it if Graham was announcing.

Does Kalas make mistakes? Yes. Does he make more than he used to? Yes. Does that mean it's time for him to go? No. When he calls Ryan Howard Ricky Jordan than it's time to go.

 

On the other hand, John Sciambi is pretty entertaining and not so full of himself. Chip, for al his faults, is probaby a good enough broadcaster to have a job anyway. Skip, to me, has always been awful. If it weren't for his surname, he'd be doing high school football in Missouri.

 

novelist, I really enjoy Boog Sciambi, and he's a really good guy to boot. I have spoken with people who think Sciambi is more grating than Chip.

I don't want to hear analysis or judgmentalism from a play-by-play man unless his first name is Vin and his last name is Scully. Everything about Chip bothers me. He called the Rogers Centre "Rogers Field" a few weeks ago. Minor enough, but this is your job. All his rah-rah shit is even less tolerable than usual because it's coming out his pipsqueak mouth. He is Scrappy to his father's Scooby.

I can go either way on Skip. He is part of the soundtrack of my childhood, but he has gotten very testy and cranky over the years, especially to callers. It's no wonder they don't let him do the postgame show anymore.

Pete Van Wieren is the man. Not enough is said of him.

 

Looks like those announcer lessons really paid off for him.

 

Everyone screws up from time to time, The Chip Carey's, the Joe Buck's, and yes, the Vin Scully's and Harry Kalas's. What the former don't have that the latter do, are experience, style and flair. What is Carey's homer call sound like? How about Buck's? Now, ask anyone what Scully's sounds like. You'll get a pretty good presentation from 8 or 10. Those guys take on a life of their own. It's not a Dodgers game, it's a dodgers game called by Vin Skully, and it's a Kalas-called Phillies game. As an XM subscriber, I turn on one of those games, and I'm dissappointed if they aren't calling it. It's a part of baseball lore. As a fan of Pittsburgh teams, I sat through the last couple of seasons of Myron Cope as color guy for the Steelers. Was he bad? Yes, just as bad as Ron Santo and Jack Brickhouse, but he was a part of the draw to the Steelers for Pittsburghers. There was Lynn Swann, Bradshaw, Franco and Cope, among others. Cope trusted a long-time friend to tell him if he ever slipped to the point where it was time to hang it up, and eventually, that call was made in brutal honesty. Cope was said to have nod his hed in agreement/disappointment, and retired the next day. He went out on his own terms. Not some 30-something millionaire who doesn't know a football from a hockey puck making the call because, well, he thinks it's HIS team. Bottom line, guys like Kalas and Skully decide, period, when it's time to go.

 

Wheeler did more TV games than radio back in the day. A lot of the games that were on Prism would be his.

 

I remember watching a Mets-Cubs game on WOR back in the day, with Ralph Kiner calling it ...

"And Jody Davis swings and hits a pop fly. Should be an easy out ... And that's ball's gone! Home run!"

Still cracks me up to think about it.