That Epic Game 3, and Some Thoughts on Baseball Broadcasting

At some point late Monday night, or perhaps it was early Tuesday morning, I made the following post on Facebook:

Were you like me? did you stay up until three o'clock in the morning to watch all 18 innings of that 6-5 Dodgers win over the Blue Jays?  It was truly an epic game, and I couldn't tear myself away from it, no matter how tired I was.  (Thank God for being retired!)

I always love looking at box scores of marathon games like this.  Ernie Clement and Tommy Edman were both 1-for-8.  Edman had at least two chances in extras to end the game for the Dodgers, which would have been fitting, because he had earlier made two tremendous defensive plays in the game that prevented Toronto from scoring and winning the game.  Teoscar Hernandez was 4-for-8 with a home run and an RBI.  There were nineteen pitchers used.

We all know, though, what the true highlight of that box score was:  Shohei Ohtani with a 4-for-4 night and five walks, four of them intentional, two home runs and 3 RBI. He was on base an almost incomprehensible nine times.

And to have it end with a walk-off home run by one of my favorite players, Freddie Freeman.

It was indeed a game for the ages.

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And now please allow me to vent a bit on the subject of baseball broadcasting in general.

Like you, I have slogged through these past several weeks watching MLB post-season games on various different networks - Fox, TNT, ESPN - and I have found that the announcers broadcasting these games, both the play by play guys and the analysts, are generally terrible to the point of being almost unlistenable.  I have the volume turned way low on the TV while watching and listening.

What is the problem?  Well, the game itself has gotten so bogged down with analytics and statistics and data that it has become mind-numbing.  John Smoltz, who I had always liked on these games, has gotten to the point where it seems that all he talks about are things like release angles and whether or not this or that pitcher is throwing too high a percentage of splitters.  Oh, and let's not forget how we are constantly reminded about things like exist velo and JUST HOW HARD so-snd-so is hitting the ball, never mind that he is in a 2-for-15 slump.  Honest to God, I think that my ears started to bleed while listening to him last night in Game 4.

And all of this comes after listening to Greg Brown, Joe Block, and all of the ex-jock Pirates in the booth over the course of a 162 game season.  As we all know, no one loves talking about launch angles, exit velocities and how HARD Oneil Cruz hits the ball as he compiles his .200 batting average more than Brownie and Blockie.

Back in August, the Pirates honored their former broadcaster Lanny Frattare upon his being placed on the Media Wall of Fame in the Press Room at PNC Park.  At that time, I heard Lanny being interviewed on The Fan, and in commenting upon the state of announcing today, he said two interesting things.  One was that he would prefer doing a broadcast of a game alone, with no analyst.  You know, like Vin Scully always did.  That would be nice, I think.  Secondly, he said that broadcasts today are too cluttered with word salads involving launch angles, exit velocities, and other advanced metrics mumbo-jumbo. He may not have meant it that way, but that was one serious shot across the bow that Lanny took at the current Bucco announcers.

Thanks for listening, folks.