T.J. Simers: What a choice: Disneyland or Pittsburgh? -- latimes.com
Simers is characteristically grating in this article, but he also makes a good point, which is that whenever the Dodgers travel outside the division, we have the choice between two terrible sets of announcers — and that is no choice at all.
Myself, I opted for Rick and Charley last night, more out of familiarity than anything. They’re still annoying, but it’s predictable and almost comforting in a Joe Buck and Tim McCarver sort of way. (Confession: I truly learned to appreciate those two in their horrible way after I got stuck watching the ALCS on TBS last season. I actually missed them ruining my Red Sox games. If you’ve never spent any time with Chip Caray, you haven’t experienced pain. The ‘07 ALDS between Cleveland and New York was a new low for him. But I digress.) However, I was using Gameday Premium’s inline audio option, which stopped working, so I switched to the KCAL feed briefly.
I listened for one batter, and I think I killed half of my brain cells.
Eric and Steve were arguing about how you would score a putout by the third baseman when the third baseman is on the opposite side of the shortstop, in a Williams shift. This happened earlier in the game when Furcal stayed in his position but The Beard was put in short right field. That is, the shift happened, not the putout, just in case the following is not stupid enough for you. Steve kept harping on the fact that the third baseman was not at third base and ergo “5” was not where the putout occurred, and Eric isn’t smart enough to engage him properly or shut him up, so this just kept going. The whole theoretical discussion was so idiotic. Neither of them were making a good point nor expressing themselves intelligently (my version of the conversation is way more coherent than theirs; I can’t properly imitate that level of inanity). I think my two elderly dogs have more intellectual discussions than that.
As an aside, I’m not against listening to the opponents’ announcers. I used to do it all the time before MLB.TV Premium offered home and away feeds, and I even looked forward to some of them. The Pittsburgh and Washington announcers are not among that group.
Hurry up, Tuesday. Get us back to the West Coast and into the arms of Vin Scully. Please. I’m going to die.
