October Classic - Somone Get Me Vin Scully

This weekend starts an exciting World Series between two squads with deep pitching representing two cities who have, like the plague, avoided meaninful baseball in October. Combine this with a ton of heart and we could be seeing an all out battle for the World Series crown.

However, if I were you, I'd mute the T.V. and turn on the radio dial, as this year is another year in which FOX will be broadcasting the game. A FOX Broadcast means Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, which really means, get a spoon so you can gouge your eyes out everytime Tim or Joe says something utterly devoid of any understanding of the game of baseball.

It has been utterly unbearable listening to these clowns. In the Astros/St. Louis series, I had to bear listening to McCarver and Buck constantly prattle along about how, after Albert Pujols's dramatic game winning shot in Game 5, the Cardinals were in the driver's seat and that the Astros were collapsing (Before we go on, I was completely agnostic about the outcome of that game--both teams are a lot of fun to watch and since they aren't the hated Yankees or Braves, I'm happy to enjoy watching without caring about who wins).

However, how can one possibly be in the "driver's seat" when they are facing an elimination game that will first face Roy Oswalt, and if they don't win that game, then Roger Clemens? Understandably, the Astros were not too happy about blowing game 5, but it was just one game. Maybe St. Louis believed the hype, or myth, because they looked flat in game 6. Too bad, as LaRussa is going to spend another year with a dominant team regular season without getting a ring.

McCarver and Buck's game is over-dramatizating. Vin Scully, the legendary broadcaster that called many of the October Classics in the 80's (Mets/Red Sox - A's/Dodgers most notible), once said that when a big moment happens, he sometimes just likes to be quiet. He lets the crowd have the microphone as sometimes actions and emotions speak for themselves. Scully very rarely interjects himself into the game, making the focal point being the play on the field or the people making up the game.

Contrast this with McCarver--during the epic American League Championship Series between the Red Sox and the Yankees, Boston was down 3-games-to-2 and were leading 4-2 going into the bottom of the ninth. Foulke comes in to close out the game and proceeds to walk Matsui. Tim McCarver then says (paraphrase), "What a disaster. Walking Matsui was the worst thing Foulke could have done...even worse than giving up a homerun." Immediately, Al Leiter, who I think is a pretty bright guy, challenges McCarver's assinine statement. Clearly the walk was a bad thing, but in McCarver's kneejerk attempt to over-dramatize, he becomes incoherant.

Now, we all say stupid crap from time-to-time (Lord knows this site is full of it), but McCarver couldn't resist continuing on throughout the rest of the inning--the Bottom of the 9th in an elimination game for the Red Sox--arguing with Leiter about how he was right. The focus shifted from the game on the field, to the announcers both. Very un-dude un-Scully-like.

And I guess I just hate that.

If I sound bitter about McCarver, being a long-time Met fan, I had to listen to this insufferable man broadcast Mets games on WWOR for years, so needless to say, the man gets under my skin.

I would have rather listened to a drunk, old bastard who was completely tongue-tied when pronouncing a Latin players' names ("Rammerrez"), unable to distinguish between a catcher throwing a strike-three around the horn versus a "llliiine shot ta tha third-baseman", and a singing "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" just slightly less incoherant than Ozzy Ozbourne (Everyone rightfully makes fun of Ozzy in that performance, but only he was able to capture the moment's "true spirit").

Anyway, enjoy the game!