Tim McCarver and Joe Buck

Tim McCarver and Joe Buck

I hate Tim McCarver. I dislike Joe Buck, but I hate Tim McCarver.

Any time they're on the teevee calling a game for Fox, it ceases to be a baseball game, and becomes the Buck n' McCarver Show. I don't want to single Fox and Buck n' McCarver out, because ESPN is just as bad, especially if either Joe Morgan or Rick Sutcliffe end up calling the game.

Tell these guys we're here to watch the game, and not listen to them blather on.

But for the purposes of this John Brattain post, which Len pointed out, somebody put my thoughts into word form without my having to do it.

Mr. Brattain:

The All-Star break is mercifully over. I’m not sure whether to blame FOX or MLB or commissioner Bud Selig or any combination of the three but geez, can we get rid of the technological bells and whistles and mindless, meaningless in-game interviews? Why were fans subjected to an interview with Texas starter Kenny Rogers while NL reliever Brad Lidge’s fireworks were relegated to a small window? We tuned in to watch a ball game which allegedly has baseball‘s best and brightest, not listen to some 40-year-old pitcher with behavioral problems. The whole Buck/McCarver/Chevy/H-H-R-Y-A sign idiocy was beyond pathetic.

This is baseball’s showcase? It was more like a "Price is Right" showcase—a testimony to rampant consumerism. I wish the suits at FOX would require a word limit on announcers. You get to say a certain number of words during the telecast and when you hit your limit you have to shut up for the rest of the night. Just show the ballgame—what fans tune in to see—and not Tim McCarver and Joe Buck’s verbal diarrhea, in-game interviews with cliché-rattling athletes, or special effects that make one think that there’s a 12 year-old computer genius with ADD running amok in the production truck. If FOX and MLB ran a dog show, the “best-in-breed” segment would feature dogs dropping a dookie or puking up carrots in the middle of the floor.

We just want to see baseball’s best doing what they do best.

Well said.

I didn't realize that HHYRA thing bugged me so much until after the fact. I ignored it, when Buck and McCarver were prattling on. Figured it was something they were wanting me to go look at, since they were speaking of it at length. It's the old Pro Wrestling TV rule. If it's on camera, there's a reason for it. There's no simple conversation, anymore. It irritates me when I found out what it was for, though.

I know there are people who dislike the Braves' announcers, but they're near the top of my list. I'm biased, because they're what I grew up with. But for the exception of Don Sutton, who launches into Sutcliffesque second guessing every now and then, the Braves announcers, even Chip, all seem like guys you wouldn't mind just sitting back watching a ballgame with.

If I sat with Tim McCarver? I'd demand new seats. Or run out onto the field and attack a coach, just so I'd be escorted out of the stadium.