Archive for Review

As both (a) science and (b) residents of the American South are able to confirm, there’s more than one way, reader, to skin a cat.

So it is, then, that, with this revelation, we discover yet another way in which skinning a cat and enjoying baseball are similar — for there are numerous ways of doing the latter, as well.

Some of those — like watching a game while enjoying one of America’s great public spaces or listening to a game while playing the crap out of one’s PlayStation 3 — have been documented in these very pages. But some is the operative word here, for the list of ways to enjoy Our Fair Sport is close to, if not entirely, inexhaustible.

Allow me, then, to submit for the reader’s consideration another way in which I’ve recently enjoyed baseball — namely, by watching MLB.TV while also listening to comedian Marc Maron’s WTF podcast.

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In case you missed it, please be advised, reader, that the Mets continued their important research in the field of Ways to Lose last night, falling 9-8 to the Braves in 10 innings after not only conceding a two-run lead in the bottom of the ninth, but then, in a truly inspired flight, losing the game on a walkoff balk.

Reliever D.J. Carrasco delivered the coup de grâce, but it would be unforgivable not to recognize the contributions of Francisco Rodriguez, who allowed the ninth-inning, game-tying home run to Brooks Conrad, and also to Lucas Duda for mishandling a Jordan Schafer grounder to extend the inning and put runners on first and third for Jason Heyward.

The balk itself, you’ll notice, isn’t particularly grievous — but a balk nonetheless. Truly, though, the star of this particular show is Heyward, whose excited gesture back to home-plate umpire James Hoye and subsequent fist pump are stirring in the best possible way.

The footage you see here is from the bottom of the eighth of last (Tuesday) night’s contest between San Diego and Colorado. On a 1-1 pitch to Rockie rookie Chris Nelson, Padre rookie reliever Evan Scribner threw basically the dictionary definition of a yakker.

The pitch, according to Pitch F/x data from Brooks Baseball, was thrown at 71 mph, had 4.7 inches of glove-side run and 11.2 of drop — this, relative to the major-league averages for a curve of 77, 5.8, and 6.0. Scribner’s averages, for reference, are as follows: 71.1, 6.1, 9.8. In other words, he’s generally throwing it slower and, consequently, with more depth, than an “average” curve. He threw three on Tuesday, but this was the deepest by, like, four inches.

While it may or may not be the case that Scribner’s curve is actually effective in terms of getting outs in the majors, it’s certainly a pleasure to watch… over and over and over. Big, bending curves like his are, for me, the baseballing equivalent of a young Sophia Loren in that my first impulse is to try and make a baby with it. Beyond that, Nelson’s reaction adds to the pleasure of this tableau — especially considering that the pitch is called a strike.

It looks like Scribner’s currently throwing the curvepiece ca. 38% of the time now, so, if you’re watching a Padre game and he (i.e. Scribner) called upon, you’re more than likely to see him.

This post comes complete with poll. Because it’s America, you know.

Tiger play-by-play man Mario Impemba is most well known for his role as a Fratelli in The Goonies.

In a move that I believe underscores my commitment to the fledgling broadcast-review project here at NotGraphs, I’ve not only consumed three or four Tiger games ahead of the present review, but have actually traveled to the pleasant peninsula that is Michigan with a view towards truly understanding what it is to watch Tiger baseball*.

*That my wife’s family happens to live on same peninsula, and that we had been planning to visit them this past weekend, ought to be regarded as mere coincidence.

As I say, I watched parts of about three or four broadcasts on FS Detroit for the purposes of this review — including the May 24th game, at home versus Tampa Bay, with particularly close attention.

The FS Detroit broadcast team is composed of play-by-play man Mario Impemba and color commentator Rod Allen. Regarding the studio hosts, there are either one or 100 of them. But they’re all giant, large men with strange haircuts, is what I can say about them.

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Resolve: Is Wisconsin’s Union Terrace our country’s greatest public space?

I don’t think I’m telling any tales out of school, reader, when I submit that the City of New York has played, and will continue to play, a major role in this country’s popular culture.

The films of Woody Allen, sitcoms such as Seinfeld and Friends and 30 Rock, the music of Jay-Z and Mos Def and the Beastie Boys, the ubiquity of publications like the New York Times and the New Yorker and New York Magazine: each features, with some degree of prominence, the city that has been called by all sorts of people the “Biggest of Apples.”

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Note: this post features a poll at the bottom. Rate the Rangers’ radio broadcast for yourself.

Eric Nadel’s alma mater (a) is picturesque and (b) allows students to take every class pass/fail.

Continuing what I started over the weekend with a review of the Atlanta Braves television broadcast, what follows is a review of the Texas Rangers radio broadcast.

For the purposes of the present review, I listened to selections from a pair of games on KESN-FM — the May 11th game against Oakland that was delayed by rain and (ultimately) postponed, and then this past Saturday’s game against the Los Angeles Angels.

The broadcast team is composed of Eric Nadel and Dave Barnett. As seems to be the case with other radio teams, the pair seems to call a game in shifts, with Nadel taking the first couple innings, Barnett taking the next couple, and so on.

Analysis
As I’m likely to reiterate elsewhere in this review, Nadel and Barnett provide analysis that, as a listener, I wish were a 3 out of 5, but, given the present level of discourse in America’s broadcast booths, probably rates as a 4 out of 5. There are no citations of FanGraphs, no attempts to integrate advanced metrics, and yet there’s generally a respect for sample size and separating, for example, pitcher performance from team performance.

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Note: this now features a poll at the bottom. Rate the Braves’ broadcast team yourself.

Chip Caray is the handsomest of the Carays.

On Friday, I submitted for the readership’s consideration, some basic criteria by which one might assess the quality of an MLB broadcast. In what follows, I attempt — perhaps with less modesty than I ought — to apply that criteria to the Atlanta Braves’ television broadcast.

Over the past week, I watched (most of) a pair of Braves games on Atlanta’s SportSouth — first, Julio Teheran’s debut at Philadelphia on May 7th, and then Friday night’s contest against those same Phillies, but this time at Turner Field.

The broadcast team is composed of play-by-play man Chip Caray and color commentator Joe Simpson. Former Brave Brian Jordan joined the telecast on Friday night, as well.

Analysis
Simpson is the stronger/-est member of this broadcast team (depending on whether you consider Brian Jordan part of said “team.”) He demonstrates little understanding of statistical analysis — he and Caray made unqualified references, for example, to how many RBIs Brian McCann had at Citizens Bank Ballpark and how Joe Mather was “batting .500” against Cole Hamels (in six at-bats) — but he was helpful, I thought, when discussing pitchers.

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Vin Scully on the ones and twos in 1964.

As I’ve made clear in these pages — mostly by means of words, but also occasionally by means of a sexy dance — a great concern of mine, so far as the art and science of baseball commentary is concerned, is in developing criteria by which the learned fan might anticipate the watchability of a particular game. Already we can do this with something like precision via the NERD Game Scores available in each morning’s edition of One Night Only at FanGraphs’ main page. A catalogue of all 30 of the league’s center-field camera shots further prepares the enthusiast for his nightly viewing. (Watching Roy Halladay pitch at Turner Field is much more satisfying, for example, than watching Halladay at his home park — or, worst, at Pittsburgh’s PNC Park.)

A stone that’s been left almost entirely unturned in this pursuit of happiness, however, is a discussion of what makes for an excellent baseball broadcast. In what follows, I outline some criteria for doing just that.

First, allow me to reveal my biases, such as they exist.

Above all, my preference is for spirited banter. Brewer radio commentator and ubermensch among just regular menschen Bob Uecker is unparalleled in this regard. Uecker’s commentary regularly ascends from the level of mere “word picture” to something considerably more noble, and one can find him, with startling frequency, composing spontaneous paeans to The Good Life. Should it be revealed that Uecker speaks entirely in a fixed meter of his own invention, this would be the pinnacle of unsurprising.

Of course, there are some caveats to this issue of spirited banter. For one, it is not merely enough for a broadcaster just to talk a lot or guffaw a whole bunch. This is annoying and should be censured early and often. Moreoever, there’s the Case of Vin Scully. To the best of my knowledge, Scully has never once recounted one of his drunken episodes on air, and yet probably comes closest to rivaling Uecker in terms of charm — which, charm is probably the best word to describe this quality we’re discussing. Let’s just use that, how about.

With that, we might consider three major criteria for assessing the quality of a broadcast, as follows.

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Pair your media experience with Trader Joe’s Mediterranean Hummus.

A teacher of mine in high school — one who was very enthusiastic about what I’m almost certain is called “experiential education” — had a number of guiding principles by which he conducted his pedagogical self. Of these, one he’d repeat pretty often concerned the idea of “authoring” one’s education. “A student,” this teacher would say, “needs to become the author of his education — of his experiences, in general.”

Though I’ve likely fallen short of this ideal — too many “experiences,” it seems, involve swimming nude in a public water source, an activity which I regard as indecent on multiple levels — it’s an idea with merit, this. The passive consumption of experiences/ideas/media is wrong not on a moral level, as many hippies/communists/Portlanders would argue, but on an aesthetic level. Which is to say, it’s imperative that we tailor our experiences to our own specific preferences and talents; otherwise, said experiences will surely underwhelm.

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