G-Man Temporarily Taking Over TV PBP

Do you like getting the chance to hear the best announcer in the league on your TV?

  • Yes

    Votes: 27 96.4%
  • No, because I hate beautiful things and step on puppies.

    Votes: 1 3.6%

  • Total voters
    28

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#31
And by the end of his career, Vin was barely even calling the game anyways.
I'll push back on that one. As a (gasp!) Dodger fan with MLBTV, I watched most of the games in 2016. Scully only worked about 100 games, and was clearly not at his peak, gaffing a player name (sometimes even a Dodger) and/or the count once or twice a game. I mean, I'd say he was working at about 80% but "barely calling the game" doesn't really fit.
 
#33
The hope I expressed about Kayte is nothing more than that: hope. I understand that she doesn't have any play-by-play credentials (yet) to make her a serious consideration for that job in the near-future. But that doesn't prevent me from hoping that she gets a chance to show if she does or doesn't have what it takes.
Totally understandable. I just believe if she has any aspiration of doing it, she needs to get some experience first. Do what J-Ross, Deuce and Morgan are doing.
 
#34
I think that your argument would be a better one in a world where everybody agreed that the most important thing about being an announcer was how many games you got to cover. I don't think that G-Man preferred radio to TV, based on how many games he got to call, and I don't think that local television now covering all the games affects his opinion, in the slightest.
It’s not at all an argument. It’s pure speculation. Perhaps I didn’t do a good job of making it clear that I don’t pretend to know for certain what G-Man’s true love or aspirations are or were. Unless someone can dig up a quote from him, speculation is really all we got.

That said, I can certainly see solid reasoning for opting for radio over TV over radio back in 1985 when you’d be covering 82 games versus, maybe, 25 on TV. I imagine the pay discrepancy between the two would be drastically different considering the workloads. And that workload disparity would have largely remained until the early 2000’s.

IMO, completely ruling out that factor is a tad shortsighted.

I gotta back the chief on this: modern television viewers, in the aggregate, don't want the play-by-play announcer describing every detail of what's happening on the court, in the way it has to be described on radio, for the benefit of people who can't actually see what's going on. If Chick Hearn were still alive, he'd either adjust his style to be less descriptive, or he'd be doing radio only. And Vin Scully is an even worse comparison, in my opinion, since baseball has way fewer moving parts than basketball, so there's no actual difference in the way the game needs to be called.
You might be right about what most viewers want. I have no clue what the actual research would say on the matter, so I’ll concede that you are right for the purposes of this discussion.

Regarding what Chick Hearn and Vin Scully would do, again, we can only speculate. I just know that they both did it and were successful at it. And it’s my belief G-Man could do it too. He’s as experienced as any announcer out there, and has called lots of high profile events across numerous different sports. IMO he’d figure out a good balance.

But I get that not everyone agrees with me on that.
 
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#35
I'll push back on that one. As a (gasp!) Dodger fan with MLBTV, I watched most of the games in 2016. Scully only worked about 100 games, and was clearly not at his peak, gaffing a player name (sometimes even a Dodger) and/or the count once or twice a game. I mean, I'd say he was working at about 80% but "barely calling the game" doesn't really fit.
Dodger fan? I knew there was something deeper about you I liked! ;)

I‘m born and raised in SAC, but I’ve been a Dodgers fan since I was 6 years old. Dodgers-Yankees World Series in 1977 was my first exposure to baseball (that I remember) and I sided with the underdog.

With regard to Vin Scully, I’ll second everything you said. I’ve been subscribing to MLB.tv since 2013 and recorded every Dodgers game. As much as I miss Vin, I actually like Joe Davis and Orel Hershiser a lot. Same goes for Steiner and Monday on radio.
 
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Tetsujin

The Game Thread Dude
#36
I'll push back on that one. As a (gasp!) Dodger fan with MLBTV, I watched most of the games in 2016. Scully only worked about 100 games, and was clearly not at his peak, gaffing a player name (sometimes even a Dodger) and/or the count once or twice a game. I mean, I'd say he was working at about 80% but "barely calling the game" doesn't really fit.
Baseball announcers have a tendency to sort of go off on long non-sequiturs about whatever they feel like talking about at random points in the game (the sport less itself to that). Now I obviously haven't listened to as many Dodgers games as you have but I'd tune in often enough (baseball games make great background noise for translating) but it sorta felt like at the end of his tenure, Vin's non-sequitur-to-baseball ratio had started tipping further and further away from the baseball end of the spectrum. Of course, its baseball PBP so that's fine, if not preferable to a guy who does nothing but list balls and strikes and gives player names.
 
#37
The color analyst's job is much easier than the PBP job, which is why you see a rotation of analysts around the same PBP guys every few years on national television. A lot of people can be a color analyst but very few can do PBP at a high level.

You can't just plug an analyst into the PBP role the same way you can't just plug a running back into the starting lineup at QB just because he has a strong arm. In my opinion, everyone in the Kings universe other than Gary Gerould are G League level or even lower when it comes to PBP announcing. I can almost guarantee that the telecasts will sound extremely bland and somewhat awkward compared to what we're used to if they plug in anyone other than Gerould into the TV slot.

If you don't believe me, try muting the sound and doing your own PBP for a couple minutes during a game. Guarantee you'll sound like the "Boom goes the dynamite" kid :D
 

Capt. Factorial

trifolium contra tempestatem subrigere certum est
Staff member
#38
Baseball announcers have a tendency to sort of go off on long non-sequiturs about whatever they feel like talking about at random points in the game (the sport less itself to that). Now I obviously haven't listened to as many Dodgers games as you have but I'd tune in often enough (baseball games make great background noise for translating) but it sorta felt like at the end of his tenure, Vin's non-sequitur-to-baseball ratio had started tipping further and further away from the baseball end of the spectrum. Of course, its baseball PBP so that's fine, if not preferable to a guy who does nothing but list balls and strikes and gives player names.
I see what you are talking about. One of Vin's strengths was his simulcast - when he was doing radio and TV simultaneously - because he could weave his stories in and out of the play call and make it seem seamless. By his last season, he was only simulcasting the first three innings, then other radio announcers were taking over. He definitely did have a tendency to change his storytelling when he was TV-only because he didn't have to call each pitch, as obviously the viewer could see it. For someone used to Scully's simulcast, if you see a lot of non-simulcast at the end of his career that might make you attribute the entire change to slippage, when it was a combination of slippage and format change.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#40
Totally understandable. I just believe if she has any aspiration of doing it, she needs to get some experience first. Do what J-Ross, Deuce and Morgan are doing.
I believe Kayte actually has addressed this in the past. I might be able to find the quote, but to the best of my memory she said she liked doing color commentary but had no desire to do play-by-play.
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#41
The color analyst's job is much easier than the PBP job, which is why you see a rotation of analysts around the same PBP guys every few years on national television. A lot of people can be a color analyst but very few can do PBP at a high level.

You can't just plug an analyst into the PBP role the same way you can't just plug a running back into the starting lineup at QB just because he has a strong arm. In my opinion, everyone in the Kings universe other than Gary Gerould are G League level or even lower when it comes to PBP announcing. I can almost guarantee that the telecasts will sound extremely bland and somewhat awkward compared to what we're used to if they plug in anyone other than Gerould into the TV slot.

If you don't believe me, try muting the sound and doing your own PBP for a couple minutes during a game. Guarantee you'll sound like the "Boom goes the dynamite" kid :D
Play-by-play ain't easy. ;)
 

Mr. S£im Citrus

Doryphore of KingsFans.com
Staff member
#44
The color analyst's job is much easier than the PBP job, which is why you see a rotation of analysts around the same PBP guys every few years on national television. A lot of people can be a color analyst but very few can do PBP at a high level.

You can't just plug an analyst into the PBP role the same way you can't just plug a running back into the starting lineup at QB just because he has a strong arm. In my opinion, everyone in the Kings universe other than Gary Gerould are G League level or even lower when it comes to PBP announcing. I can almost guarantee that the telecasts will sound extremely bland and somewhat awkward compared to what we're used to if they plug in anyone other than Gerould into the TV slot.
If you accept the premise of the sentence in red, then the sentence in blue almost doesn't matter, because even a "G League level" play-by-play announcer is going to be better at it than a color analyst.

Also, I don't know how many G League games you get a chance to listen to, but there is certainly a greater-than-zero number of G League play callers whom I'd happily take over some NBA announcers.
 
#45
If you accept the premise of the sentence in red, then the sentence in blue almost doesn't matter, because even a "G League level" play-by-play announcer is going to be better at it than a color analyst.

Also, I don't know how many G League games you get a chance to listen to, but there is certainly a greater-than-zero number of G League play callers whom I'd happily take over some NBA announcers.
Nailed it. Talent can come from anywhere. Dave deuce mason, a "g-league guy", does a great job calling games. Im sure many g-league pbp people that I've never heard also do great jobs.
 
#46
Gary Gerould is without a peer in the craft of sports broadcasting, and NBA play-by-play is his specialty. He is the absolute MASTER of the craft. He is the Mike Tyson, the Michael Jordan, and the Michaelangelo of broadcasting. I don't think there will ever be anyone as good as him. And he's still in his prime. His longevity is unbelievable. He exudes a level of class that cannot be overstated. He is the opposite of Grant Napear, and this should have been done years ago. I hope he finishes off his career on doing TV play by play.

I know I'm not the only one that has shut off Napear and turned on the radio to hear the G-man while watching the game on TV. Won't have to do that now, and deal with the small lag.
 
#47
Great choice for right now, but i don't see it being permanent either. People forget about all of the travel that comes with that lol there's no way in the world the G-man needs to be out there going on 8 game road trips whenever we start doing those things again.
 
#48
The color analyst's job is much easier than the PBP job, which is why you see a rotation of analysts around the same PBP guys every few years on national television. A lot of people can be a color analyst but very few can do PBP at a high level.

You can't just plug an analyst into the PBP role the same way you can't just plug a running back into the starting lineup at QB just because he has a strong arm. In my opinion, everyone in the Kings universe other than Gary Gerould are G League level or even lower when it comes to PBP announcing. I can almost guarantee that the telecasts will sound extremely bland and somewhat awkward compared to what we're used to if they plug in anyone other than Gerould into the TV slot.

If you don't believe me, try muting the sound and doing your own PBP for a couple minutes during a game. Guarantee you'll sound like the "Boom goes the dynamite" kid :D
Very very very true. I'm gonna miss the other guy, but, hey. It certainly isn't an easy job and there are very few PBP guys left that i can say i even enjoy at this point. Kevin Harlan will always be in my top 3, however.

We also need more Black/POC PBP guys to get into the game as well and i hope that starts to become the norm
 
#52
Every team is having their announcing crew work remotely so there's no travel risk involved for the G-Man
I had heard the announcing crews would be remote for the Bubble season finish/Playoffs* . I guess it could continue next season since the arenas are most likely to be empty anyway.
 
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#53
Great choice for right now, but i don't see it being permanent either. People forget about all of the travel that comes with that lol there's no way in the world the G-man needs to be out there going on 8 game road trips whenever we start doing those things again.
What do you think he’s been doing for the last 35 years? Same amount of travel is involved as it always was for him.

And I suspect he’ll continue do it, whether it be TV or radio, for as long as he wants to.
 
#54
We also need more Black/POC PBP guys to get into the game as well and i hope that starts to become the norm
We need good ones, regardless of race or gender. Hire the best and let the statistics fall where they may.

Among my favorites is Gus Johnson. I really miss that guy calling NFL games. He’s still great doing college football and basketball, though. I still vividly remember his “cold blooded” call when Isaiah Thomas hit a game winner for UW.