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Pete Van Wieren retiring

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by novelist_wannabe, Oct 21, 2008.

  1. pressmurphy

    pressmurphy Member

    Interesting sidenote:

    Van Wieren and Lanny Frattare, who just retired recently after more than 30 years in the Pittsburgh Pirates radio booth, attended the same high school.

    One school, 100,000 or so innings of work. Not bad.

    http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20081021/SPORTS/81021038/1007/SPORTS
     
  2. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    Pete had been exclusively on radio the last couple of years, so this won't change the TV coverage ... I'm assuming that will still be Jon Sciambi and Joe Simpson on the FSN/SportSouth broadcasts, with Chip and Ron Gant on PeachTree TV (Ron replaced Skip there after Skip died).

    But yeah, I'm guessing they'll need to hire a full-time radio guy, maybe two. They used Mark Lemke (who normally does the pre/post-game show) to fill in on the road and after Skip died, but I don't know that he was ever considered a long-term solution.

    I'm hoping they bring back Don Sutton, who's been with the Nats the last few years. Always liked him ...
     
  3. expendable

    expendable Well-Known Member

    I don't. Don is one thing that makes watching the Nats palatable.
     
  4. BNWriter

    BNWriter Active Member

    I was sorry to hear about Skip's passing (even if I was not crazy about his work sometimes), but I, too, wonder if Caray's passing didn't hasten Pete's leaving.

    BTW, can anybody tell me why/how the decision was made for TBS to stop running Braves games? Anything to do with TBS' post-season plans which started this year (and which I could barely stand).
     
  5. BigRed

    BigRed Active Member

    It had everything to do with TBS' new plans. TBS now does a Sunday game of the week plus the postseason games. It was my understanding that since they had the national game of the week, they could only have one team on their station a certain amount of times, which meant they had to dump the Braves-exclusive telecasts.
     
  6. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    I believe TBS lost its superstation status as well, since its local programming (on Channel 7/17) didn't match the national programming enough. So Turner split the local/national stations up into Peachtree TV (local) and TBS (national), and it's basically two different stations now.

    I don't think Braves exclusivity comes into play at all, because TBS wasn't going to be able to show all those games anyway unless it figured out a way to retain its superstation status.
     
  7. Steak Snabler

    Steak Snabler Well-Known Member

    Theoretically ... but the biggest thing is that TBS is trying to re-brand itself as a the comedy equivalent of TNT or A&E, running re-runs of classic series (Seinfeld, Sex & the City, Everybody Loves Raymond) and its own original programming (House of Payne, My Boys, etc.).

    I can't blame them, really. A 15-year-old episode of Seinfeld gets higher ratings on a Tuesday night in June than, say, a game between the Braves and Marlins.
     
  8. mike311gd

    mike311gd Active Member

    If they'd only bring back Kent Mercker and Greg McMichael, they wouldn't have that ratings problem, would they?
     
  9. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    Hey, don't forget Alejandro Pena.

    And that's not just a suggestion. It's a philosophy for life.
     
  10. 2underpar

    2underpar Active Member

    pete was always a professional -- skip not so much
     
  11. buckweaver

    buckweaver Active Member

    But together, they were the best.

    Besides, you could say the same about Skip's dad. Didn't stop either of 'em from being great announcers to listen to, for a long, long time. That's all you can ask for.
     
  12. sportshack06

    sportshack06 Member

    Hate to see Pete go, but it almost feels right with Skip gone.

    They had Pete on air with Mark Lemke after Skip's passing and it just didnt sound right.

    Hopefully the Braves do not counter and give Lemke or Gant a full-time position. Neither seem up to par to me. I would be all for giving Don Sutton a call back, but still would need to hire someone full time on play-by-play.

    Sciambi calls about 100 of the games or so for FSN/FSS and has ESPN duties throughout the year and off-season. Joe Simpson is one overworked man. He calls every game with Sciambi and was calling the majority of the games with Chip (and Skip when Chip was gone) on PeachTree TV.

    That leaves Chip - who can't do anything on Friday-Monday really due to the TBS national game on Sunday. Maybe they could phase Chip in on radio a little more during the week. He's done it before and does it well, much better than TV.

    If they could work out a rotation like they used to do forever ago, with 2 guys doing 4.5 innings and the other 2 doing the final 4.5 and those 2 would lead off on TV the next day and flip after 4.5...
     
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