I love listening to baseball on the radio. Baseball is the only sport that I think loses absolutely none of its luster on the radio and in a lot of cases it’s better than it’s TV counterpart (hello, ESPN Sunday Night Baseball). I remember last season being on a flight last year that featured XM and being in pure heaven listening to the Cubs, Brewers and Mariners games simultaneously. What I failed to realize though was how completely spoiled I have been for most of my life with baseball announcers. Harry Caray, Steve Stone, Ron Santo and Bob Eucker have been apart of my life since I was a kid and I’ve never thought about what it must be like for other people.
Well I saw this linked on Al’s Ramblings today and besides the whole living in Ohio and liking the Reds thing, THANK GOD I’M NOT A REDS FAN. The way he attacks Adam Dunn is one thing and I don’t think I could ever see Bob Eucker doing that to a player, but his hatred of the team is disgusting.
Brennaman is way past the point of telling tough truths about players, and now he’s simply bitter. Day in and day out, he sounds like a man who truly hates his job, and truly hates the Reds. He hates that after having been able to watch the Big Red Machine in the 70s and some pretty darn respectable Reds’ teams in the 80s and into the mid 90s, he’s had to watch a mostly bad team play for the past decade. What’s worse, he’s not professional enough to put that disappointment aside and simply do his job like Skip Caray and Herb Score any number of other announcers of bad teams have done over the years.
Last season I remember a few Mariners games where the suckiness of Jose Vidro, Richie Sexson and others was completely ignored with the announcers acting as if they were in a slump or something. This was annoying, but is certainly better than the reverse where your announcer clearly hates the team. Ron Santo loves the Cubs, Bob Eucker loves the Brewers, Dave Niehaus loves the Mariners and they all do it no matter what. Not only are these people paying you a lot of money, but they are doing it for a job that you love. If you don’t love it anymore, get the hell out of there and stop ruining it for the rest of us.
Man, I’d forgotten how awesome Harry Caray is. I met him as a kid and have his picture around here somewhere, I’ll have to put that up one day. Until then listen to this. It’s hilarious.
The Chicago Cubs have acquired Florida Marlins reliever Kevin Gregg, sources told ESPN The Magazine’s Buster Olney.
The Marlins received 22-year-old right-hander Jose Ceda in return, according to sources.
Gregg, who was Florida’s closer for most of the 2008 season, saved 29 games last season and was 7-8 with a 3.41 ERA. He blew nine saves for the Marlins in 2008.
If the Cubs were to pursue Jake Peavy or any of the top free agent pitchers (not to mention Brian Roberts or Raul Ibanez) they would obviously have to cut payroll somewhere and it looks like they are choosing to do it with Kerry Wood. Which is a shame, much like Rick Ankiel, I thought Kerry Wood was another guy that would be one team for life. Cubs fans have been through so much with Kerry Wood from his rapid ascension, 20K game to the point where it looked like he wouldn’t ever stay healthy to this season where he established himself as a closer. He’s a figure in the city and I always hate to see guys like that leave, but in the end it’s just about money and there will be someone there to take his place. Just ask Trevor Hoffman.
The Cubs want Raul Ibanez. Let them have him. Off of MLBTR.
Ibanez would play right field for the Cubs, even though he allowed 18 more bases than the average left fielder this year.–MLBTR
They’ve got to be nuts. You could watch one Mariners game and see how bad Ibanez was in the outfield. Pick one of the 153 and you’ll find a bad play, guaranteed. I’m no whiz with defensive metrics, but without Ichiro and Reed in center I could see that number being even higher. He definitely doesn’t have the arm for right, that’s for sure. Ibanez is best served being a DH or a bad first basemen at this point.
This move has all the fingerprints of Lou Piniella wanting more bats. (It’s like he played all those years with Bucky Dent and said to himself “Never again.”) The lineup would be pretty deadly (At best Ibanez bats fifth in that lineup, more likely sixth), but they’d need to score a lot to make up for Soriano and Ibanez in the corners. A lot, a lot.
Seriously, Jack. If there is rumors that both the Mets and Cubs want Ibanez, he’s not going to stay. Offer him arbitration, get turned down, take the draft picks and let his defense become someone else’s problem.
I'm 29 years old, a single dad and my name is Vince. I write about my life and the things that I find interesting which covers everything from movies to TV to wrestling to writing. I'm just trying to have fun, have a good life and figure out how I can be even more awesome. Still working on that last one. You can find my baseball blog at Miller Park Drunk. I've been told it's okay.
