Marty Brennaman

[Lyman_Bostock]

His bloward son makes me nauseous, but I will say this: I'm not sure any play-by-play guy in major-league baseball today is as candid and honest about his own team as Marty is about the Reds.

Their starting pitcher is getting rocked tonight, and Marty just said he "stunk out the joint." Imagine a Cubs announcer saying something similar? They wouldn't be employed much longer (Steve Stone, anyone?).

This hardly isn't the first time Brennaman has ripped his own team a new one, when warranted. Maybe you can get away with this if you've been doing games for 32 years and are an icon in your community, but I don't hear too many other guys doing anything simiilar on the MLB airwaves.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Jack Buck could be critical of the Cardinals (he could kiss major ass, too). Harry Caray could be critical in his semicoherent way. Skip Caray is more snarky than critical.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

Jack Buck could be critical of the Cardinals (he could kiss major ass, too). Harry Caray could be critical in his semicoherent way. Skip Caray is more snarky than critical.

All true, but is Joe Buck as critical of the Redbirds as his father could be? I'm not sure any of the newer breed is. That might be because they don't feel comfortable or secure enough in their jobs to do so, but you would think Buck wouldn't have to worry about that.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Joe Buck has his status as the voice of Fox Sports to worry about. And he just seems to prefer delivery over substance. Not that a smooth delivery isn't comforting or consistent, but it is a tradeoff.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

Buck still does a fair amount of Cardinals games. Don't know how many, but more than just a few.

Shannon is barely able to string together two sentences that make sense, let alone be critical when necessary.

 

[dooley_womack1]

Mike Shannon is woodwork. But he has improved a helluva lot since he started in 1972. He was the worst announcer ever back then.

 

[SportsDude]

Marty puts the fans ahead of the team, period. Catch him during a rain delay when he's interviewing the general manager. He's not afraid to ask the tough questions. I give him a lot of credit.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

Marty puts the fans ahead of the team, period. Catch him during a rain delay when he's interviewing the general manager. He's not afraid to ask the tough questions. I give him a lot of credit.

He didn't have too many complimentary things to say about Jim Bowden the other night, speaking of GMs.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

Speaking of Shannon-isms, enjoy this:

http://www.joesportsfan.com/Shannon.html

I will give him this, though: He runs a hell of a restaurant.

 

[viamsp]

Jack Buck could be critical of the Cardinals (he could kiss major ass, too). Harry Caray could be critical in his semicoherent way. Skip Caray is more snarky than critical.

All true, but is Joe Buck as critical of the Redbirds as his father could be? I'm not sure any of the newer breed is. That might be because they don't feel comfortable or secure enough in their jobs to do so, but you would think Buck wouldn't have to worry about that.

On the radio, Gary Cohen, when warranted, was always critical of the Mets. Being out of the area, I haven't heard him on SNY, but the reports I've gotten are that he's been declawed there. It's interesting, but it seems to me that Howie Rose isn't as critical working with McCarthy than he was with Gary (it could just be that the Mets are a better team this year, on both Cohen and Rose).

 

[novelist_wannabe]

Funny this thread came up today. I was listening to the Braves radio broadcast and Joe Simpson came pretty close to lighting up Horacio Ramirez. Because of the sentiments already expressed here, I couldn't believe what I'd heard. But it was refreshing. Not as blunt as Brennaman Sr., but you just don't hear much of that sort of thing.

add -- The tidbit was that Ramirez had admitted to being hyped up for his start against the Mets over the weekend, during which he was abused for seven runs or something. Simpson said, "You know, a guy with his experience level, you don't get to have that excuse. " Be interesting to see if Simpson hears anything from above.

And while I'm on the subject of the Braves, Skip Caray is pretty bad, but I purely cannot stand Chip.

 

[Columbo]

Brennaman had the great light-up of Griffey a few years ago:

"I was here before you arrived, and I'll be here after you're gone" Perhaps I'm paraphrasing.....

 

[lantaur]

Jon Miller could be critical of the Orioles, one of the reasons Peter Angelos got rid of him.

Brennaman is awesome. I'm amazed he doesn't swear on the air ... the man's language is, to be generous, quite salty.

 

[Lyman_Bostock]

I believe Brennaman also challenged Ron Santo to a fistfight a couple years back because Santo called Danny Graves "fat." I'm not sure how much guts it takes to challenge a legless man to a fight, but ...

 

[Pete Roses Bookie]

 Marty is great.  When Steve Stewart signed on as his sidekick it was fun to listen to the dead air from Stewart whenever Marty criticized the Reds.  Of course, some Reds fans say dead air is the best of Steve Stewart.  I think that's a little harsh.  Brennaman also tweaked the fans of the other MLB team in Ohio a few years ago when they thought the Tribe had invented baseball before it ever won a World Series.  Something to the effect that just a few years earlier you could have fired a cannon into the seats at Cleveland Stadium and not injured anyone.

 

[playthrough]

I love Marty. He and Nuxhall were especially great together. I think he more or less cohabitates with Steve Stewart, who is completely uninteresting.

 

[Smasher_Sloan]

Marty is a treasure, one of the guys who realizes he's broadcasting for the fans and not the players (or their wives). Players ***** and moan, but players also come and go. Martys a constant and a valuable marketing asset for the Reds.

If a performance stinks, you might as well say so. Gives you more credibility when you rave about the good things. But so many teams insist the announcers start shoveling bull**** to cover up the obvious.

 

[Bubbler]

His bloward son makes me nauseous, but I will say this: I'm not sure any play-by-play guy in major-league baseball today is as candid and honest about his own team as Marty is about the Reds.

Their starting pitcher is getting rocked tonight, and Marty just said he "stunk out the joint." Imagine a Cubs announcer saying something similar? They wouldn't be employed much longer (Steve Stone, anyone?).

This hardly isn't the first time Brennaman has ripped his own team a new one, when warranted. Maybe you can get away with this if you've been doing games for 32 years and are an icon in your community, but I don't hear too many other guys doing anything simiilar on the MLB airwaves.

Miracle of all miracles, Lyman and I find common ground.

I wrote a summer-time column about Brennaman several years ago extolling the very virtues you cite above. I think it was in 2000, the year after the Reds contended for the wild card, and they were bad. The premise of the column was that Marty was so good, he'd compel you to listen to a bad team you would otherwise have no interest in listening to (I explained my Brewers fandom in the column) and, to me, that's the acid test of a true master play-by-play man.

Maybe 10 days later, I get an e-mail from Brennaman. One of my readers had forwarded it to him and he was extremely thankful that I would write about him in such a way and invited me to hang out in the Reds radio booth if I got the chance to cover a game. I was never able to take him up on that, but I don't think I've ever been prouder of an e-mail I've received in my entire life. I still have it on my wall.

He's the gold standard, and this comes from someone who was weened on equally great Bob Uecker.

 

[Darrell Dawson]

I am by no means a Reds fan, but Marty is quite entertaining. He can be publicly pissy toward his employer, sarcastic and has an unequaled set of chicklets ... what's not to like?

The best Martyism I can remember was from a few years ago around the time he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame. That, of course, brought Pete Rose NOT being in the HOF back into the discussion. Marty was pissed that Pete wasn't in and Johnny Bench was (if I recall correctly) a bit ambivalent about the whole thing and I think Marty and JB got into a bit of a tiff about it.

So, coming back from a commercial in between innings, Marty was trying to wrap up a story to someone off-mic (I can only imaging he was talking about his HOF speech in reference to Bench) and you could hear him yell to someone across the room:

"... so I said I'll show you the ******* speech."

 

[Bubbler]

Marty puts the fans ahead of the team, period. Catch him during a rain delay when he's interviewing the general manager. He's not afraid to ask the tough questions. I give him a lot of credit.

He didn't have too many complimentary things to say about Jim Bowden the other night, speaking of GMs.

Brennaman HATED Bowden and takes potshots at him whenever possible.

I was lucky enough to listen the night after Bowden was arrested for a DUI. The sarcasm and virtriol was damn near seeping out of my XM, but Brennaman was never direct about it, cutting Bowden to shreds with 1,000 incisions. It was awesome.

Does Brennaman still do NCAA basketball tournament games on Westwood One? He was very good at that too.