Joe Buck or the Red Sox - Who's weirder?

[AGuinness]

Originally Posted by Snapolit1

There were so many times in the WS where Buck and Smoltz were off on overheated tangent ("this pitcher is locked in. He can do whatever he wants to do right now, he wants to humiliate the other batting order . . .bla bla bla" and then within 10 seconds someone would lace a double in the corner and they switch on a dime and go off on some diametrically opposed harangue ("no one is going to stop so and so . . . . he can put the ball anywhere he wants. . . . ."). Like the prior discussion that went on for 4 minutes never happened. Which is it? Is the pitcher unhittable or not? I realize these guys have a lot of space to fill but the non stop jabbering really wears me down. 95% of the time they just wait for something to happen and then explain why it was inevitable what just happened. Okay. Whatever.

As far as Buck goes, the fact that he never played the game (like many announcers) means all he really does is repeat the same obvious stuff we have all heard our whole lives watching baseball. No insight just repetition.

Smoltz is fair. Don't hate him and at least he has some insights the average fan might not catch.

I don't like either of them. In fact, I muted the sound on the Fox broadcast and streamed WEEI (Red Sox radio broadcast) for the sound, which was much better. I still had to deal with the gratuitous camera shots of people in the stands, which always annoys me - Fox has been doing this for years and it drives me crazy. I'd much rather see the players involved in the game in between pitches, rather than shots of some fan with their hands at their mouth for 10 seconds (but I digress)...

I believe Fox, with Joe Buck, does a handful of baseball games per year, as Buck has other obligations with NFL and golf (I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure of this). I also think that since baseball is played pretty much everyday, radio and TV announcers who work every day do a much better job than announcers who only do games on occasion. They know the teams better, know the cadence of the game better and can add specifics to the broadcasts, rather than overused cliches and generalized blather.