It drives me nuts and I'm not Lyon(s)
OK everybody (I'm assuming there is more than one person reading this...that's funny) we're going on a magical journey today. Close your eyes and imagine....wait, don't close your eyes otherwise you won't be able to read this (unless your blind, then it doesn't matter either way). It's an early September evening on an island on a lake. You have a cabin right near the water's edge. The water raps itself gently against the shoreline and the occaisional hum of boat fills in the sound. You sit on your porch in a chair placed in a corner, with your feet perched up on a stool. You're lightly reading that day's newspaper, trying in vain to complete the crossword or your reading your new book or maybe you're just sitting with your head tipped back, enjoying the scent of the coming nightfall and the peace that surrounds you.
In the background, there is a faint hum of a radio. Spilling from it's speakers is a baseball game. It's your favorite team and since you're currently living in a place that gets 3 1/2 television stations (4 if the weather is right) this is the best way to find out what's going on with your boys of summer. There is something calm and peaceful and on the right night, you can drift away into a quiet sleep, the kind that you wake up from more confused than coherent; and you bregrudingly drag yourself to your bed, change your clothes and flop down on top of your covers rather than crawl underneath them and drift back away into sleep.
This is how I've spent many a night this past fall, sitting on a cabin porch by a lakeside, taking in a Red Sox game while cursing myself for only being able to get 10 words completed in the crossword. The thing I like about the night best is the voices on the radio. I've listened to them for a number of years off and on, but now I take them in on a nightly basis and I've gotten quite used to them and I rather enjoy them. They banter now and again, but not incessently. The description is usually pretty good. Any stories they tell, tie to what's going on in the game. Best of all they aren't there to be comedians, they're there to tell a story and paint a picture of what's going on in the game. They make it fun to be sitting on that porch and listening to what they have to say.
Well, if I find myself near that lakeshore, in that cabin next September, I don't know how much I'm going to enjoy having the radio on. Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano have been the broadcast pair for Red Sox radio that I have come to know and enjoy. Well, Trupiano won't be back next season and it's not my aversion to change that has me fretting about my night time companion, but who it may be.
There is a rumor that the replacement could be Steve Lyons. For those of you not familiar with him, Lyons, a former major league player for parts of 9 seasons with 4 teams. (For those of you who wish to see what his playing career amounted to click here ...if you don't follow baseball, just know he didn't do much with his career, pure and simple). Well, Lyons has risen to something of prominence in the broadcast booth. He did Dodger broadcasts for a while and he has served as one of the lead analysts for Fox baseball. His analysis isn't all that bad as a matter of fact, it's just, well there's a bunch of other junk that comes along with him.
He's notourious for putting his foot in his mouth. He's actually free for this job because Fox fired him for making insensitive remarks in regards to Lou Pinella's Mexican heritage during a broadcast in the playoffs this year. Also in the playoffs, he happened to make fun of a fan who was wearing an unusual contraption around his eyes that looked rather robotic. Well, the man turned out to be nearly blind and the contraption he was wearing helped to enhnace his vision so he could watch his beloved Mets. These are only a couple of more recent incidents where Lyons has made an ass of himself for lack of a better term.
Of course there is the issue of what he said and has said in the past, but maybe the more important question is why was he evening saying something like that? Well, the simplest reason is that he was trying to be funny, a mistake that seems as though is being made all too often.
Too many commentators try and be too funny all the time. I've given up watching NFL pre-game shows because all there is all the time is constant cackling from "experts" that are supposed to delivering analysis. I've grown tired of color commentators trying to crack jokes during a broadcast. My ears actually start to bleed if I listen to Jim Nantz for more than 2 hours without a break because his trying to be clever is anything but clever at all. If you were meant to be funny, then you would be doing something where you were required to be funny. But this job does not require funny, in fact it requires insight and analysis. In fact you were given the analysis job, because you were a former player, so you have some type unique insight since you played the game on its highest level.
A good commentator to me is simple and basic. Doesn't matter if it's during a game or in a talk show format. What's going, why something is happening and maybe what will happen next. If time will allow for some story or anequdote that ties in to what you are doing and enhances the broadcast, then please enlighten us, if not drop it and move on. I don't know if it's a product of everyone trying to have sthick when they broadcast or if some people think they are genuinely funny, but it seems to be everywhere. Recently, Michael Irvin, a former wide receiver, tried to suggest that Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Tony Romo's recent success and especially his good scrambling ability could possibly be to the fact that somwhere in his families' gene pool, one of the female members slept with a black man. Irvin later apologized for his remarks and said he was trying to deliver a perspective of what it was like inside a locker room and the kind of joking that goes on in one.
Well, aside from his claim being absolutely idiotic and pointless.....no, that's about it actually. I'm trying to say, what's the point of it? What does it do to enhance my understanding of how he is performing on the field? Are you trying to illustrate the point that sports locker rooms are places for off color comments, mysoginistic comments and overdone bravado? Well, I already knew that and so does most everyone else, so what are you really doing aside from wasting my time.
The whole point I'm trying to get at is that there is simply something to be said for simplicity. Don't try and be a funny man if you're not one, or if the situation doesn't call for it. I'm not saying there isn't room for levity in a broadcast, it's sports there should be room for some fun, but don't force it. If there was a need for fake laguhter then they'd have a laugh track. If a joke presents yourself, then make one, but don't force it. I can't believe that I'm saying this, but more often than not, less is more (yes, this is defiently the pot calling the kettle black on this one). Steve Lyons doesn't seem to get that and the fact that he may become one of the voices of my favorite team simply annoys me. Of course, I say all this while I aspire to do what these guys do and they get paid large amounts of money while I get paid with nothing but frustration, so maybe the joke is on me.
Part of the reason I so fondly enjoyed those nights on the lake is because listening to the radio didn't cause me annoyance. Well, let me rephrase that, the people on the radio didn't casue me annoyance, though Sox during this strech often did. It was a nice noise to have in the background. Their voices rising with the action and the quiet hum of the radio when not much of anything was going on. Picture that with a cold beer by your side and well, how much better could life get?
I enjoyed my peaceful nights on that porch and if the rumors are true and Lyons becomes the second voice on my radio, well my those future nights just got a whole lot less peaceful.
In the background, there is a faint hum of a radio. Spilling from it's speakers is a baseball game. It's your favorite team and since you're currently living in a place that gets 3 1/2 television stations (4 if the weather is right) this is the best way to find out what's going on with your boys of summer. There is something calm and peaceful and on the right night, you can drift away into a quiet sleep, the kind that you wake up from more confused than coherent; and you bregrudingly drag yourself to your bed, change your clothes and flop down on top of your covers rather than crawl underneath them and drift back away into sleep.
This is how I've spent many a night this past fall, sitting on a cabin porch by a lakeside, taking in a Red Sox game while cursing myself for only being able to get 10 words completed in the crossword. The thing I like about the night best is the voices on the radio. I've listened to them for a number of years off and on, but now I take them in on a nightly basis and I've gotten quite used to them and I rather enjoy them. They banter now and again, but not incessently. The description is usually pretty good. Any stories they tell, tie to what's going on in the game. Best of all they aren't there to be comedians, they're there to tell a story and paint a picture of what's going on in the game. They make it fun to be sitting on that porch and listening to what they have to say.
Well, if I find myself near that lakeshore, in that cabin next September, I don't know how much I'm going to enjoy having the radio on. Joe Castiglione and Jerry Trupiano have been the broadcast pair for Red Sox radio that I have come to know and enjoy. Well, Trupiano won't be back next season and it's not my aversion to change that has me fretting about my night time companion, but who it may be.
There is a rumor that the replacement could be Steve Lyons. For those of you not familiar with him, Lyons, a former major league player for parts of 9 seasons with 4 teams. (For those of you who wish to see what his playing career amounted to click here ...if you don't follow baseball, just know he didn't do much with his career, pure and simple). Well, Lyons has risen to something of prominence in the broadcast booth. He did Dodger broadcasts for a while and he has served as one of the lead analysts for Fox baseball. His analysis isn't all that bad as a matter of fact, it's just, well there's a bunch of other junk that comes along with him.
He's notourious for putting his foot in his mouth. He's actually free for this job because Fox fired him for making insensitive remarks in regards to Lou Pinella's Mexican heritage during a broadcast in the playoffs this year. Also in the playoffs, he happened to make fun of a fan who was wearing an unusual contraption around his eyes that looked rather robotic. Well, the man turned out to be nearly blind and the contraption he was wearing helped to enhnace his vision so he could watch his beloved Mets. These are only a couple of more recent incidents where Lyons has made an ass of himself for lack of a better term.
Of course there is the issue of what he said and has said in the past, but maybe the more important question is why was he evening saying something like that? Well, the simplest reason is that he was trying to be funny, a mistake that seems as though is being made all too often.
Too many commentators try and be too funny all the time. I've given up watching NFL pre-game shows because all there is all the time is constant cackling from "experts" that are supposed to delivering analysis. I've grown tired of color commentators trying to crack jokes during a broadcast. My ears actually start to bleed if I listen to Jim Nantz for more than 2 hours without a break because his trying to be clever is anything but clever at all. If you were meant to be funny, then you would be doing something where you were required to be funny. But this job does not require funny, in fact it requires insight and analysis. In fact you were given the analysis job, because you were a former player, so you have some type unique insight since you played the game on its highest level.
A good commentator to me is simple and basic. Doesn't matter if it's during a game or in a talk show format. What's going, why something is happening and maybe what will happen next. If time will allow for some story or anequdote that ties in to what you are doing and enhances the broadcast, then please enlighten us, if not drop it and move on. I don't know if it's a product of everyone trying to have sthick when they broadcast or if some people think they are genuinely funny, but it seems to be everywhere. Recently, Michael Irvin, a former wide receiver, tried to suggest that Dallas Cowboys Quarterback Tony Romo's recent success and especially his good scrambling ability could possibly be to the fact that somwhere in his families' gene pool, one of the female members slept with a black man. Irvin later apologized for his remarks and said he was trying to deliver a perspective of what it was like inside a locker room and the kind of joking that goes on in one.
Well, aside from his claim being absolutely idiotic and pointless.....no, that's about it actually. I'm trying to say, what's the point of it? What does it do to enhance my understanding of how he is performing on the field? Are you trying to illustrate the point that sports locker rooms are places for off color comments, mysoginistic comments and overdone bravado? Well, I already knew that and so does most everyone else, so what are you really doing aside from wasting my time.
The whole point I'm trying to get at is that there is simply something to be said for simplicity. Don't try and be a funny man if you're not one, or if the situation doesn't call for it. I'm not saying there isn't room for levity in a broadcast, it's sports there should be room for some fun, but don't force it. If there was a need for fake laguhter then they'd have a laugh track. If a joke presents yourself, then make one, but don't force it. I can't believe that I'm saying this, but more often than not, less is more (yes, this is defiently the pot calling the kettle black on this one). Steve Lyons doesn't seem to get that and the fact that he may become one of the voices of my favorite team simply annoys me. Of course, I say all this while I aspire to do what these guys do and they get paid large amounts of money while I get paid with nothing but frustration, so maybe the joke is on me.
Part of the reason I so fondly enjoyed those nights on the lake is because listening to the radio didn't cause me annoyance. Well, let me rephrase that, the people on the radio didn't casue me annoyance, though Sox during this strech often did. It was a nice noise to have in the background. Their voices rising with the action and the quiet hum of the radio when not much of anything was going on. Picture that with a cold beer by your side and well, how much better could life get?
I enjoyed my peaceful nights on that porch and if the rumors are true and Lyons becomes the second voice on my radio, well my those future nights just got a whole lot less peaceful.
posted by MC at 3:18 PM
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