The Cleveland Indians have announced their new two-man TV booth.
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reports that it'll be Tribe radio voice Matt Underwood moving over to the SportsTime Ohio side, paired with incumbent analyst and former Indians centerfielder Rick Manning on the team's TV broadcasts.
Like last year, Underwood and Manning will be joined by WKYC/3 sports director Jim Donovan on the team's 20 broadcasts that'll be seen on WKYC and the regional over-air TV network.
Underwood's move to TV also creates a two-man booth on the Indians Radio Network, as it'll be veteran play-by-play voice Tom Hamilton paired solely with Mike Hegan starting next season.
For 162 games, we presume...not 182, a presumed typo in the PD blog item...
Monday, October 16, 2006
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10 comments:
Maybe the good folks at the P.D. were very optimistic. Regular season plus one game playoff to determine division champion, plus division series, ALCS, World Series, all maximum amount of games equals 182. Boy is my head hurting.
Am I the only one who really questions why this move was made? John Sanders was (and is) a fine play-by-play man...and the unique rotation gave some of the team a much needed day-off here & there throughout the season, while keeping a fresh sound on both radio & TV. Matt provides some great interaction with Tom & Mike on the radio...and to restrict him to just TV really stinks.
All in all, why mess with a successful situation? Don't the Indians have much more serious PROBLEMS to address than this? It's just plain ridiculous, and puts another quality gentleman out of work. Nice going, Tribe. (Guess we can view it as another cost-saving measure by the El Cheapo family owners. No?, you say. How else do you think it looks?)
I think it's a great move. I thought the radio team was cluttered with Underwood and it was beyond annoying to have TWO different guys call play-by-play during the same game. Now hopefully Hamilton will call ALL nine innings and be the true voice of the Indians.
When I read about the 20 extra games, I assumed they included the Spring Training games that are carried on-air.
Most MLB booths split the game into three inning shifts--the main PBP guy does 1-3 and 7-9 with the color guy handling the middle innings..with all the screaming over routine plays, how is Tom to maintain his voice over a 162-game season, if he called all nine innings day after day?
Unless my XM gets different baseball games than everyone else, having two different guys do play-by-play in the same game is not the MLB norm.
The previous "anonymous" is correct:
The Indians broadcast 20 Spring Training games on the air, which makes the total number of broadcasts, pre-playoffs, 182.
Anonymous said...
Unless my XM gets different baseball games than everyone else, having two different guys do play-by-play in the same game is not the MLB norm.
...you must then have a different XM, either that or you only listen to the cubs, yankees and diamondbacks. i believe they are the only teams that employ just one pbpman that does all nine innings or radio. most MLB broadcasts have two pbpers and the breakdown isn't always the 1-3, 7-9 format stated above. most chop it up so that the #1 voice does 1-2, 5-6, 8-9.
Underwood is very vanilla and very average.
So ... that makes Underwood a "poor man's Sanders?"
I agree that, on the surface, this purely looks like a money move.
And I still don't understand why they have to split the innings between two guys. I don't find it confusing, but I just think it's weird.
Most baseball teams do split the innings between announcers. When Joe Tait did the baseball games he usually split innings with Bruce Drennan and Jack Corrigan. Herb Score split innings with Nev Chandler and Tom Hamilton it is the norm. At least Mike Hegan is a decent analyst who can do play by play. Most analysts are so bad it is impossible to listen to them. I am sure Kenny Roda is upset because his buddy Michael Reghi didn't get a play by play job with the Indians. Michael Reghi is the second coming of Joe Tait when you listen to Kenny.
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