Today’s Games on TBS
Gm 3 Dodgers at Cardinals: 6:07 PM
Gm 3 Phillies at Rockies: 9:37 PM
TBS has done an outstanding job of covering the first week of the ALDS and the NLDS with quality camerawork and solid announcing.
The TBS production on all of the games has been top notch with great producing, directors who have done a fine job of capturing each key moment with great reaction shots.
They deserve a solid B for their MLB playoff coverage.
I have gotten a ton of email on the broadcast teams that are calling the games and as someone who has hired and fired announcers I can tell you that there are no perfect broadcast teams that come together for a once a year event.
The TBS announcer pairings have gotten some bad and unfair critiques from the media and the bloggers because they only work together once a year in the playoffs.
Only the team Chip Caray (play-by-play), Ron Darling (analyst) and Craig Sager work together on the TBS Sunday Baseball package.
The Red Sox – Angels team of Don Orsillo (play-by-play) Buck Martinez (analyst) and Tom Verducci do an entertaining job. Many Yankee fans don’t like Orsillo the regular Boston broadcaster for NESN, but frankly I have not detected any” homerism” on his part. For his part everyone loves Martinez as an analyst.
Phillies – Rockies NLDS is being done by the team of Brian Anderson (play-by-play), Joe Simpson (analyst) and David Aldridge. Anderson serves as the voice of the Brewers during the season while Simpson is part of the Braves broadcast crew and works at times with Caray. This is the least known of the teams but I find them entertaining and knowledgeable.
The most liked TBS crew is the one with the most national broadcast experience under their collective belts and that is the team assigned to the Dodgers- Cards telecasts. Dick Stockton , Bob Brenly and Marc Fein reporting. Stockton is the dean of the TBS broadcast crew with 30 plus years of network experience calling baseball and his partner Brenley has been a fixture on FOX baseball and on WGN so it is no wonder that fans seem to feel comfortable with this duo.
The late Curt Gowdy once told me that no one ever watched a sporting event because of the broadcasters.
The TBS crews are all baseball broadcasting professionals with long resumes, but some not nationally known. That does not make them bad it simply makes them a bit of an unknown to the viewers and as we all know fans are not crazy about the unknown.
Which brings me to suggest that next year TBS consider going “old school” on their ALDS and NLDS broadcasts by having the local TV teams work the broadcasts together. Let’s use this year as an example of what we could have done – The Dodgers Vin Scully working with the Cards Al Hrabosky while the Philles Chris Wheeler and the Rockies Drew Goodman would pair up.
The Red Sox Orsillo would be paired with the Angeles Rex Hudler and if TBS felt that the Yankees – Twins series was the main one then they could assign Caray, Martinez and Darling to that one. By all means use the same fine reporters assigned to the series that they now have and the national audience would get a flavor of the broadcasts done for them by the voices that know the team’s best.
My point is simple and that is if TBS is going to use once a year broadcast teams for the ALDS and the NLDS then let’s go local.
