Nationals President Stan Kasten told TV play-by-play man Bob Carpenter that he would not be coming back for a third year as a member of the broadcast team. He along with Don Sutton and field reporter Debbi Taylor did the Nats games this year for MASN. Both Sutton and Taylor were given extensions by the club.
In 2006 he and then-partner Tom Paciorek replaced Mel Proctor and RonDarling who handled the duties the first year the team was in Washington. The team will now look for their third play by play voice in four years.
Carpenter deserved to be given an extension; he did a fine job of broadcasting the Nationals games and trust that was no easy task.
For the last 20 years Carpenter has done Major League Baseball for the Texas Rangers, ESPN, the Mets and the St. Louis Cardinals. He has been a true professional, always keeping the broadcasts entertaining and informative.
Carpenter is an old-school broadcaster who is solid not flashy, he was a homer for the Nats without over looking their faults, he Sutton and Taylor were a solid trio that seemed to be just like the team they covered getting better with every broadcast.
Stan Kasten has the right to hire whomever he wants to broadcast the Nats and his addition of Don Sutton to the crew was a real winner and for that he can be proud. I also want to compliment him on extending the contracts of Charlie Slowes and Dave Jageler as the Nats radio broadcast team.
Slowes is a fan favorite and his signature calls of “Bang, Zoom go the fireworks,” when a Nationals player hits a homerun along with “put another curly W in the books,” when the team wins have become part of the Washington sports fans’ vernacular. His partner Jageler is developing into a fine young broadcaster and it seems that Nats fans will be set for a long time on the radio waves — and that is a very good thing.
It is however sad to see a fine man like Carpenter be let go just before the team moves to their new ball park. He is a class act and we wish him well. So what happens now? Well, Sutton could move to play-by-play and have studio analyst Ray Knight serve as the color analyst moving Don Baylor to a full time role as the studio host. Sutton could be partnered with former Cubs broadcaster Steve Stone (what a rotation that would be). My guess is that Sutton will be the play-by-play voice of the team for years to come and that he will have a new partner — likely Knight. Leaving Johnny Holiday with Don Baylor in the studio for the broadcasts.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on www.examiner.com.
