Mets on TV

by GoBlue on Apr 7, 2005 11:11 AM EDT Comment 30 comments

For years I have watched Met games on mute while listening to the radio broadcast. Last night when i tried this the radio was a good 5-7 seconds ahead of the TV making it impossible to watch this way. It was like hearing into the future.

Did anyone try this during the opening day game on ESPN? Did they have the same delay? Is this the new FCC ridiculousness taking effect?

My other question what do people think of the Met announcers? I hate Fran Healy with a passion and am not to fond of the other tv folks (except maybe Ted Robinson). Love the radio guys, Gary Cohen is the best.

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Announcers

Ted's not too bad, Gary Cohen is fine, I like Keith Hernandez, and I think Tom Seaver says some very interesting things, particularly about pitching (although his voice really grates me). The others I can certainly live without.

by Blackfish on Apr 7, 2005 11:57 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Can Fran!

Now, please...

I can't stand the guy.

Memo to Fran:

Just because you were a crappy catcher, that don't make you Joe Garagiola....

...or Bob Ueker...

by CharlieH on Apr 7, 2005 12:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

TV

I can't really stand to listen to any of the Mets TV personalities. Healy is the worst, by far (he actually suggested today that Mientkiewicz was out in front of a pitch that he hit to shortstop, i.e. the opposite way).

I often watch the games on TV while listening to Cohen and Rose on WFAN, who are really a treat and a pleasure to hear. They're very open-minded and have no qualms about slamming teams and players for doing something stupid.

by Eric Simon on Apr 7, 2005 2:40 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

hate them too

I find the Mets' TV people completely insufferable as well; but really I find all TV baseball commentary insufferable. The standard at this point seems to have drifted away from calling the game, pitch by pitch and play by play, and toward endless nostalgic conversations that only occasionally return to the game at hand (and often just to say "wow!").

I've listened to around eight or ten other teams' radio broadcasts in the last few years, and I have to say I think Gary Cohen is the best baseball broadcaster working. He's quick, articulate, descriptive, unbiased, and on top of the game, and still manages to inject color and humor in the down moments. And he's got a very good eye for baseball after working for so long in the business; often he'll see things in a play that I miss when it's in front of me. The others surrounding him in the post-Murph era are decent broadcasters -- Robinson, Rose, and old friend Ed Coleman, who's my favorite -- but Cohen really is something special. Listen to the slack, behind-the-play calls, and the ludicrous homer slant, that John Sterling gives on Yankee radio, and be thankful.

by anonymous on Apr 7, 2005 2:58 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Seaver

Seaver is awful and so is Hernandez. I thought Howie was good on TV and I always liked Gary Thorne. Cohen is oustanding. But the all-time worst is Healy. His predictions are never right (I think he still thinks Butch Huskey will hit 30 HRs), and his analysis is pointless. He was an awful player and an even worse announcer, if that's possible.

by blindbernard on Apr 7, 2005 3:58 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Keith

Hernandez is brutally bad. It seems his on-the-air talent is inversely related to his on-the-field talent. I think it's important for an announcer to be both modest and self-effacing, particularly if he's a former player. Hernandez CANNOT take a joke - if another announcer teases him about his playing days, he gets freakin' defensive, which is just SO grating. And when he's not busy doing that, he tells stories about himself in such a self-promoting way it makes me want to gag.

A lot of you probably remember that classic Seinfeld episode where Elaine dates Hernandez. He spends the entire time talking about his "hit in game six." Turns out the comedic version of Keith Hernandez was actually an accurate mirror of the real-life Hernandez.

by DavidNYC on Apr 8, 2005 1:41 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Healy

Has anyone else noticed that Healy constantly mis-pronounces Juan Encarnacion's name as if it were spelled Juan Encarnarcion (with a second "R")?

by Eric Simon on Apr 7, 2005 5:31 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Announcers

Many announcers - including Gary Thorne - inexplicably called Tsuyoshi Shinjo "Sinjo." It drove me nuts - as nuts as when that goon Russ Salzberg kept calling him Hideki IRA-boo, instead of I-RAH-bu.

Why can't these guys wrap their tongues around foreign names? It's just not that hard.

by DavidNYC on Apr 7, 2005 7:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

mispronouncers

I swear I heard Bob Murphy call him Too-yoshi Skin-joe. Even the announcers that have finally learned to handle Spanish are completely beside themselves when they hit an Asian player. It took a lot of broadcasters more than a season to learn to handle Ichiro -- how many will ever be able to say Chin-Feng Chen's, or Chin-Hui Tsao's, or Akinori Otsuka's, names even close to correctly?

by anonymous on Apr 7, 2005 8:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

RE: Mispronunciations

Ralph Kiner once called Edgardo Alfonzo "Edwardo Alonzo".

by Eric Simon on Apr 7, 2005 10:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Mispronunciations

Kiner must have called Gary Carter "Gary Cooper" 10 times a year. Or when he wished all the fathers on Father's Day a "Happy Birthday."

by blindbernard on Apr 8, 2005 10:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Kiner

Oh god, I miss the Kinerisms.

"Kevin McReynolds stops at third, and he scores."

by dissento on Apr 11, 2005 1:26 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Solution

What we need is Tivo for radio so that you can delay the radio broadcast a few minutes.

by DavidNYC on Apr 7, 2005 7:09 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

RE: Delay

It's funny you should mention that. I was thinking about the same thing the other day. I find that WFAN is 7-or-8 seconds ahead of the TV broadcast, and it would be great to find a way to delay it that length of time. I would imagine there's some device you can pass the signal through that will apply a delay of some kind.

Techies out there: make it happen.

by Eric Simon on Apr 7, 2005 7:17 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's called a digital delay

And you can have one of your own for something like $100 at a better musical instrument shop.

by peeder on Apr 8, 2005 1:10 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Oh but I'm not sure about 8 sec.

That might cost a bit more...usually they go up to 5 sec or so. But maybe I'm dated. You can also get these on computers just with special software...

by peeder on Apr 8, 2005 1:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Tiv-radio

I have a feeling that with the surging popularity of satellite radio, we might see demand for a radio Tivo device. The sat companies probably wouldn't even mind very much since most of their channels are commercial-free, so it's not like their revenue would get hurt. I bet people would dig being able to listen to, say, The Al Franken Show during evening drive time b/c they can't listen when he's actually on live in the middle of the day.

by DavidNYC on Apr 8, 2005 1:36 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Presentavo en espa?ol

...por SAP.

Billy Berroa and Juan Alicea are solid, smart announcers. If you've followed baseball, you know enough Spanish to follow along. Some stadia don't mix in the ambient crowd noise, which is a little distracting, but that's your cross to bear for not hearing Fran "Idiot" Healy.

So far, the only trouble has been with the name Doug "Manquewitz," but I think that's wholly forgiveable.

Dear neighbor: Get used to hearing, "You suck, [name of reliever]!" for the next few months.

by Doc Manhattan on Apr 7, 2005 8:05 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Cohen

Rose has a face for radio. Robinson is ok, but he is a goober. Healy is just awful. Why can't we send him back to KC? Maybe we should add Anna Benson to the TV team.

by IMISSHERBIE on Apr 8, 2005 9:32 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Howie Rose

I like his kind of "Fan in the stands" perspective -- like when he interjects things about growing up in Queens and growing up a Met fan. Like Michael Kay with a conscience.

And we should send "Matty" Loughlin out on the same raft as Healy.

by CharlieH on Apr 8, 2005 10:18 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Howie Rose

Did you hear Kay the other day when Rivera imploded? They had to get someone in to talk Kay off the ledge.

Save room on that raft for Hernandez.

by blindbernard on Apr 8, 2005 10:22 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hell

As bad as the idiot trio of Healy, Hernandez and Seaver is, nothing could be worse than a summer of Suzyn Waldman, Paul O'Neill (perhaps the dumbest man alive) Michael Kay and Sterling. In my hell, the soundtrack is Suzyn Waldman describing the fine art of hitting a curveball.

by blindbernard on Apr 8, 2005 10:27 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs