July 24, 2012

Baseball Broadcaster Impressions: Los Angeles Dodgers

Continuing the baseball broadcaster impressions project today with a look at the Los Angeles Dodgers broadcasting teams. 

TV Broadcasters: Vin Scully (Home and California road games) Eric Collins and Steve Lyons (Away games from California)

Vin Scully is and will continue to be a legend in sports broadcasting and sports in general. Even a Giants fans like myself has to pay respects to the great Vin.

That being said he's definitely aged. He sometimes has a hard time pronouncing names and can be a step behind the action. That's just being a nit picker because Vin is still the greatest story teller ever. I was amazed listening to him tell the backstory to Yonder Alonzo's unusual first name. That story told by anyone else would have been useless and boring.

Another aspect to Vinny that I admire is that he broadcasts games completely alone. There's no analyst or second play-by-play broadcaster. (It's probably this way because Vinny never shuts up. Seriously watch this video of The Catch. Vinny talks right over Hank Stram) Amazing that someone at his age can continue to broadcast by himself. Other broadcasters (I'm looking at you, Matt Underwood) should take note at how Vin spends the dead spots of the game telling a story.


The drop off from Vinny to the Dodgers road crew of Eric Collins-Steve Lyons is like jumping from the top of Mt. Everest into the Grand Canyon. How these two clowns get to work for one of the marquee teams in baseball is beyond me.

Collins I've never thought much of on B1G football broadcasts. On baseball though he's horrendous. Collins continually asks Lyons questions during a broadcast that makes you wonder if Collins is just trying to move along a broadcast or whether he knows anything about baseball?

Lyons is just a bad broadcaster. He's neither insightful or funny and I always feel like jamming an ice pick into my ears when I hear him speak.

Radio Broadcasters: Charlie Steiner and Rick Monday

Steiner gets penalized for not mentioning the score/outs/innings more often during broadcasts and for misjudging/overzealous reactions to fly balls. Steiner, much like his ESPN days, will start chuckling during broadcasts but this can be ignored.

Monday is an old school broadcaster but I've heard him and Steiner discuss things such that W-L record mean nothing when they were talking about Cliff Lee last week. So at least Monday isn't stubborn when it comes to new thinking in baseball.

These guys have a great chemistry with each other so they're an easy listen. Steiner has the charisma to carry a broadcast and Monday is a good enough analyst not to be despised.

1 comment:

  1. I've always respected Scully but in my opinion there have been better baseball announcers than him.

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