Tuesday, September 25, 2012

In terms of being a homer, John Sterling cannot carry Hawk Harrelson's mikestand

Rupe Murdoch's Wall Street Journal recently did the math on TV announcing teams, creating what should have been called the Bias Universal Statistical Homer Equivalency Announcing Test - or BU-SHEAT - analysis. By quantifying the number homer-centric comments during a game, the WJB proved what everybody already knows. Hawk Harrelson is the most obnoxious announcer on the planet.

Note, because Mars or Venus might have a sports league with a worse announcer, we cannot declare Harrelson the most obnoxious one in the solar system.

But the YES crews are NOT homers.  Says the WSJ:

While Harrelson wears his bias as a badge of honor, every other crew made at least some effort to appear impartial. Five of the broadcast teams made it through their games without a single biased comment: the Mets, Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers and Blue Jays. 

Broadcasters in larger markets were generally less biased: After the White Sox, the next four teams in the rankings were the Indians, Pirates, Astros and Marlins—all small-market franchises. 

This may not be a coincidence: Curt Gowdy Jr., the senior vice president of production for Mets broadcasts on SNY, said that in a "highly opinionated" market like New York, the fans wouldn't take well to their announcers being blatant homers. "The 'we' and 'our' cannot be in the vocabulary," he said.

OK, I know what you're thinking. This concerns YES, not The Master.

But the rankings were based on tidbits that announcers do, like saying "we" or "us" or blatantly cheering the team. Yes, Sterling goes apeshit over home runs and Yankee wins. And yes, you can tell in ten seconds by the tone of his voice whether the Yankees are ahead or behind. And yes, he whines when they fail, and blathers when they succeed. But he never calls the Yankees "the good guys," he never refers to the team as "we" and he never shouts, "Get out! Get out! Get out!" when a Yankee hits a long fly ball.

If you hate the Yankees - yes, he's definitely obnoxious. But to all you Sterling critics out there, remember... other teams have homers, too.

Some Yankee fans think that every team deserves a homer... except the Yankees. They also think we shouldn't spend more money than other franchises.

We don't need self-loathing Yankee fans. And by "we," I mean us.

2 comments:

manx said...

Filling in for Suzyn Waldman tonight and tomorrow night out of the bullpen the right handed slider specialist and four time World Series Champion, Jeff Nelson.

Alibi Ike said...

One error in the report: failing to identify the White Sox as a small market team.