Worst MLB Broadcast Duo (TV Edition)

Thankfully, they've scaled back his schedule last year.

 

yes. but not nearly enough.

 

There's a few teams that are now affiliated with Root Sports. Just dreadful.

I'll nominate Ray Fosse on Athletics games. I know he doesn't have much of a product to talk about of late, but you listen to him some days and it's like he's in some alternate universe in the 80s and 90s when the A's were one of the hot teams. He's outlasted a few good pxp guys too, like Greg Papa, Tim Roye, even Hank Greenwald. Thank goodness for Kruk and Kuip across the bay.

 

McLaughlin exploded ever since his DUI arrest. And the Dirt Cheep commercials freak me out.

 

I'm going to have to go ahead and disagree with you there, Bob...

 

Compared to Sterling? Fur suuuure.

Compared to a dead Bob Elson? Maybe.

Compared to 98% of the talent pool still breathing? No.

 

Duh: easy. Thom Brennaman and "Cowboy" Jeff Brantley in Cincinnati. Brennaman is smug and insufferable, and Brantley is a real yahoo. Both suffer from serious cases of homer-itis: the Reds have never made a bad play, and the umpire is always wrong. Awful.

 

I actually like Brennaman.

 

Rod Allen, color guy for the Tigers, has to be one of the worst.


Although he does have one of the best bench clearing brawls from his days in Japan.

 

Please, no more Dave Sims in Seattle. OK, sure, got spoiled by Dave Niehaus for many years. But Sims is a steep decline.

 

The scary thing about Rod is that he's gotten demonstrably better in the last few years. Last night, after a cheap single with the Tigers down two, he said, "All they need is two bloops and a blast." It was immediately followed by another cheap single and an Alex Avila homer. Granted, that's blind luck, but Rod's been actually contributing to the broadcast with things other than excited shrieks and Stuart Scott-esque nonsense.

Mario Impemba, his partner, is a nice guy type. Not too spectacular, though he does look something like Animal from the Muppets.

Admittedly, it's tough to match-up with a pair of Hall of Famers in Kell and Kaline, but they've gotten to the point where they're at least as good as Josh Lewin and Kirk Gibson were (and frankly, that relationship always felt to me like Kirk was beating Josh between innings).

 

Jays fans have not been particularly well-served on TV since the all-world duo of Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez. These days, Buck is as bad at PBP as he was at managing and while Pat Tabler is OK, I much preferred Rance Mulliniks's analysis. Martinez and Tabler are nowhere close to matching the radio guys, Jerry Howarth and Alan Ashby.

Ashby was pretty good as the TV PBP guy in Buck's absence a couple of weeks ago and I enjoy listening to Gregg Zaun talk baseball, either on the TV pregame or as Ashby's replacement on radio.

Watched a lot of Cubs games way back in the day and really liked Brennaman and Stone.