TBS Announces MLB Playoff Announcers

And the Fisting One's replacement is.............Ernie Johnson!

LDS Announcers:
Ernie Johnson, Ron Darling, and John Smoltz
Brian Anderson and Joe Simpson
Dick Stockton and Bob Brenly
Don Orsillo and Buck Martinez

ALCS Announcers
Ernie Johnson, Ron Darling, and John Smoltz

Sideline Reporters
Craig Sager
Tom Verducci
Marc Fein
David Aldridge

TBS Studio
Matt Winer, Dennis Eckersley, Cal Ripken, and David Wells.

Ernie Johnson is the man and even though I have not heard him do PbP much, if at all, he certainly figures to be better than anything Captain Fisted ever had to offer. Overall it looks like a good line-up, certainly much better now that Chip Caray is no longer with TBS to tell us that balls are getting fisted foul. Goodbye, Chip. We'll miss you.

Chip Caray Will Have To Take His Fisting Elsewhere

Very very very sad news coming out of Turner Broadcasting today. I'm not sure if there is any other way to tell you this so I will just have to break it to you and hoped you can bare what I have to tell you without breaking down. Chip Caray will no longer be working at TBS.

Wait? You're NOT upset about this??? Via the New York Times

Chip Caray’s tenure as TBS’s lead major league baseball announcer ended Monday when he and the cable network agreed to part ways.

Caray’s high-volume style was mixed with a penchant for bad play calls, embellishments and factual errors. His best known incident occurred during the American League Central Division tie breaker between the Twins and the Tigers in October. He called an obvious lineout this way: “Line drive. Base hit. Caught out there. The runner tags. Throw to the plate. On target. And in time! A double play!”

In a memo sent to company employees, David Levy, the president of Turner Sports, wrote on Monday: “Since the end of this year’s M.L.B. playoffs, we’ve had several discussions with Chip Caray regarding 2010 and beyond. Both sides have agreed that now is the right time for Turner Sports and Chip to move ahead on different paths.”

Caray had some time left on his contract with Turner, where he also called Braves games on the Peachtree TV cable network. Levy said the company was looking at a “number of candidates” to replace Caray at both positions.

One more time with passion.......FISTED!!!!!!!!!!!!

We'll miss you, Chip. And your horrible calls.

For whenever there is a line drive basehit that is caught out there resulting in a double play, we know that your spirit will be in the booth calling it.

This MLB Post-Season Has Officially Come Full Circle

Think back long and hard as to how this post-season began. Need a refresher?

"Line drive basehit caught out there!!! [...] Double play!!"

It's come full circle folks. Last night was truly a historic moment for the Yankees, but it was also a historic in broadcasting. No longer is Chip Caray the worst announcer of the post-season (I did not hear much of Stockton so I can't assess that although surely he was not as bad as ol Chip was). Chris Rose stole that honor away from him. Here are some hilarious random people's tweets about him from last night.

"Chris Rose is such a tool. : It makes me laugh when this guy tries to dress up a question, and the player blows.. "
"Chris Rose is a douchebag! Can't believe he's from Cleveland!"
"Chris Rose is still only the second-worst Rose in broadcasting. Jalen has retired the trophy"
"chris rose is awful"
"Chris Rose is a total ass whip "
"Chris Rose is talking to these grown men like they are 3 yr olds."

Jeets FTW!

"Chris Rose is fast becoming one of the better sports commentators on television"

Whoa! How did that get in there? I never knew Nathan Brice had a Twitter account....Anyways, back to the awful...

"Chris Rose is gunning for razzie as worst championship post-game celebration presenter. #Yankees #mlb"
"chris rose is one of the worst post game and pre game analysts!!!"
"the most frequently used phrase in all of sports: chris rose is a fuckin d-bag"

What exacty was so bad about Rose? While I was not paying a whole lot of attention to the trophy presentation and as I was summing up my thoughts about the Phils, the season, and the series on the live blog, lucky for me, Awful Announcing was paying attention.

He's really a terrible announcer, but he hasn't really had the time or training to even be considered one. He has however been a host/interviewer before, and based on last night's postgame performance, I think we can officially say he isn't very good at that either.

Chris not only decided to address Derek Jeter as "Jeets", but he continually tried to go with a GPS joke about the parade route, thus confusing the players to no end

(edit from JFein: AA goes on to mention Twitter and all of the tweets before continuing summing up Rose)

I love how it took a World Series win for people to realize how annoying Chris Rose can be. My personal favorite moment from the postgame was that Mariano Rivera had to bring up the retirement question by himself, and then answer it. Just terrible.

With that said, FOX's attempt at the Series wasn't all that bad this year. I still think that Tim McCarver doesn't know what he's talking about, but he does have his brief moments of genius. And Joe Buck was surprisingly tolerable for once.

I wonder if Nathan Brice saw last night's clusterfuck. He has not yet commented at AA. I'm disappointed.

I do think AA is right about Buck and McCarver. I know I'm beginning to sound like a Dan Levy echo chamber here, but throughout the series he has pointed out how both Phils fans and Yankees fans have thought that Buck was rooting for the other team so maybe there is something to it with Buck being good. Last year, Rays fans were more happy to be here and I'm not sure if they were too concerned with criticizing the announcers. Or if they were even paying attention. Or if even McCarver's Captain Obvious analysis was way over their head, which frankly, may be a possibility.

Personally, I've always had a tolerance for Joe Buck. Maybe it's because I've heard so many of his broadcasts that I'm used to him, but in a way, I sort of have his sense of humor (pity me), he rarely makes mistakes in the booth, and while he is never going to go GuJo on you, I can hear his excitement and get into his calls and what not.

Anyway, back to the original point of the post, Chris Rose sucks!

For more tweets....

People don't seem to like this Chris Rose guy (Awful Announcing)
Chip Caray surrenders his crown to Chris Rose as the most loathed broadcaster in baseball (Deadspin)

Chip Caray, Scott Franzke, And Vin Scully Call The Last Out

The Caray video below has been deleted, as hard as it is to believe, Franzke's call got even better after The Fightins video cut off, and I htink Vin Scully had a sudden surge of depression overwhelm him in the booth.

Click on the link and enjoy!

http://mlb.mlb.com/media/video.jsp?affiliateId=CommentWidget&affiliateId=facebook_share&content_id=7076517

MLB Playoffs Day 7 Live Blog

The rematch is upon us! For the 2nd straight year, the Phillies are taking on the Dodgers in the NLCS, only this time, it is the Dodgers with homefield advantage. Game 1 is tonight and the live blog is below. Enjoy the game and leave comments!

Phillies @ Dodgers 8:07 (Hamels, 10-11 vs. Kershaw, 8-8) (TBS - Chip Caray, Ron Darling, and Buck Martinez, SR: Craig Sager)

Congrats, Twins!

Wow! What a baseball game. That was incredible. And while Chip Caray is a complete idiot (see "line drive....base hit" on a ball that ended up being caught and a double play on the throw out at home), that was one enjoyable game to watch. Here is your game-winning, division-winning moment, Twins fans!



Another beer please for RJBO!

Congrats Twins! Your reward after that hard fought victory is a trip to New York City where 21 hours after you popped some bubbly in the Metrodome, you've got Game 1 of the ALDS against the Yankees! Good times for the Twins, gooooooood times.

Update: Here's the video the aforementioned botched call by Caray.



I think he was trying to set up his winning call before the play even happened, but still funny. I think that he also caused a heart attack everywhere in Minnesota and Detroit, for differing reasons, of course. And that's without the excitement that was the end of that play!