It’s an off-day, so let’s do an off-day post.
Let’s do some polls on the Jays broadcast team.
Why not start with Buck?
Buck often will say stuff that drives me crazy. Early in the season, he said that if the Jays don’t sweep the A’s, then they can’t make the playoffs. They won 2 of 3. And recently, he said that we had to go 15-3 on our little streak through some of the poorer teams in the league.
That stuff is silly. It would be great if we had done better in that run of games, but we came out of it ok (losing four games to the Rangers was worse, but even with that, they have a shot at the playoffs).
He seems to have toned down the complaints about the catchers being on one knee. There is a little too much ‘back in my day we were’ better/smarter/cared more stuff, but then every former player in a broadcast booth does that. And there are the occasional yelling at clouds moments.
But….I have been muting the broadcast far less this year. Dan does seem to have a way of getting the best out of Buck (or, for that matter, whoever he works with) by asking questions that makes him shine.
Here is a good interview with Buck:
Dan Shulman is very professional on the broadcasts, and he still leaves room to show he is a fan of the team. And of the sport.
It seems that a lot of broadcasters aren’t fans. They spend too much time telling us how dumb we are for watching, that the game was good 40 years ago, and today’s game is a shadow of what it once was. Dan doesn’t do that.
I’ll admit, I’m not a big fan of the in-inning interviews that Sportsnet does. I’m a baseball fan, and I like them focusing on the game. I don’t like the game being an afterthought.
Joe Siddal, to me, has a great personality for both the analyst job (when Buck is away) and an expert commentator when he does Blue Jays Central.
He seems to walk the tightrope of being critical when needed without coming across as being too harsh. He seems to be able to temper his complaints with the understanding that the game isn’t easy. Sometimes, I get the feel from Buck that the game is really simple: they should have done X, and if they weren’t stupid, they wouldn’t have done Y.
Occasionally, I don’t like complaining about pitch selection. After a home run, it is easy to say that they shouldn’t have picked that pitch. This one would have been better. But it makes me want to go look to see if any pitchers gave up home runs when he was catching. Pitch calling seems more of an art form than a science, some times the right choice turns out wrong, and sometimes the wrong choice works. But that’s minor.