Best Broadcasts/Announcers For Scorekeepers
Do any of you who score a lot of games from home get frustrated by the broadcast or announcers who seem to not be geared towards actually informing the viewer what is going on in the game? I
I only get to the ballpark once or twice a year, so I do most of my scoring from my living room while watching on TV. In the "old days" I remember local and national announcers routinely saying, "For those of you scoring at home, that was a single and the runner advanced to third on the error in right-field..." However, modern broadcasts seem intent on keeping everyone entertained between pitches with banter between the play-by-play announcer and the analyst. I know attention spans are dreadfully short these days, but as a longtime watcher/scorekeeper of games I find the modern broadcasts proceed as if the game itself just is not enough to keep eyeballs on the screen. (Hence, the pointless blabber of on the field/in the dugout interviews taking place during at-bats and balls in play)
I mostly watch the Tigers and I have found that their TV broadcast and announcers are not helpful to "those scoring at home." Last year I sat through two innings of a game where Jason Benetti and Andy Dirks interviewed J.K. Simmons. Also, batted balls that could have been scored a hit or an error go by without Benetti ever announcing what the official ruling was.
Another pet peeve is beginning an inning without announcing players changing fielding positions because announcers get distracted by whatever whims the producer/director of the broadcast dream up. During the sixth inning of last night's game in Texas, reporter Daniella Bruce entered the booth right out of commercial. She was holding giant cardboard cowboy hat full of "rally nachos." She and Jason Benetti and Dan Petry talked through Nicky Lopez at-bat about the nachos, and what Bruce went through to get the nachos, and she was going to take the nachos over to the radio booth. Benetti finally announced that Beau Brieske had entered the game to pitch. Then after Lopez grounded out, they continued to talk about the nachos. The scoring "widget" or whatever they call it, on the screen showed that Justin Foscue was coming up for his fourth at bat. The first pitch was then belted for a home run which forced Benetti to stop yapping about the nachos and as what we thought was Foscue rounded first Benetti says, "Josh Smith, pinch-hitting, homers to right." And he never mentioned at any point that Ben Malgeri, who had pinch-hit in the top of the sixth, had stayed in to play center-field. I ASSUMED he had, but he never confirmed it.
I did notice last night that when a pitching change is occurring that they do now tell you who is coming in from the bullpen and put his name on the screen right before they drop out for commercial, which is nice.
I do watch a lot of Mets games too and they are really on top of keeping up with the action on the field, scoring rulings, and lineup/fielder changes so i enjoy scoring Mets games. Do any of you see this problem with your local team or is this just me, the angry old man, yelling at a cloud?