I don't know if I can answer your specific questions, but I find the ESPN broadcasts almost unwatchable. Also, I am in the minority in my liking of Sterling and Waldman. If I want clinical objective analysis, I'll go to the web and check out some of those sort of blogs, but since I am only looking for good fun when I listen to the radio broadcasts, I enjoy the schtick and over-the-top of John and Suzyn.

1 I'm curious--why do you find ESPN unwatchable but Sterling-Waldman good, over the top fun? Do you find ESPN biased? Certainly S-W are not the most objective, as you point out.

1 Do you enjoy be talked down to, treated as if you're either a moron or listening to a ball game for the first time? Were you not aware, for example, that Tom Glavine needs a generous strike zone to be effective? And if you were not aware, were you not then aware after Mr. and Ms. Pinstripe let you know the first time? Did you have trouble understanding this simple fact of Glavine-life the second time they let you know? How about the third? fourth? fifth? sixth? seventh? eighth? ninth? tenth? eleventh? twelfth? thirteenth?

I'm not a Yankee fan, as is quite well known here, but if I were, I'd be insulted and offended at the fact that Yankee management feels it necessary to keep these two on, talking down to the the Pinstripe Public, year after year. Does Yankee management really believe that their adherents really know nothing about baseball?

My favorite broadcast team is Hernandez, Darling and Cohen.

They just have such a great chemistry, and Darling's a great straight man for Keith.

Those guys are warm, have a great sense of humor as a group, and really click well. They clearly enjoy each other's company and enjoy watching baseball together.

And you never know what Keith'll say next and Cohen has a nice wry sense of humor.

Plus, they're extremely knowledgable about baseball. Cohen never misses a trick, I find him to be really perceptive about what's going on on the field.

And Herndandez and Darling are great about recognizing and discussing fundamental baseball.

Keith says things like, "Ok, all you kids out there, this is not the way to execute a rundown."

And they really appreciate good hitting and pitching. "Oooh, nice pitch!" they'll remark.

They just have such a deep appreciation for baseball.

Plus, you get the old stories about the those Mets teams they were on and about the old players and what it was like to actually be on a baseball team or to be a rookie, etc.

Just great broadcasting all around.

3 Agreed, but what are you going to do?

3 No. But one could ask the same thing about many, many other radio (and TV) teams out there.

To this as diplomatically as possible - Yankee brass knows (guesses?) that the majority of people who use the radio to access a Yankees game for the majority of the game*, as opposed to TV, are more comfortable with a couple of older folks, one who has been doing the games for a long time. Such people aren't dumb by any means, but they remember a time when many baseball radio broadcasts (save for Vin Scully and the like) were somewhat (mostly?) like what J+S put out there every night. And they like it.

That maybe reads a little too much like an old Dana Carvey SNL skit ("That's the way it was and dammit, we liked it!" (fist slams on table). But there it is.

*Anyone who's stuck in traffic, driving, etc is going to deal with J+S because there are no other options for getting the game. But guaranteed when those folks get home (or wherever), they almost certainly don't run in and flip the radio back on - they flip on the TV or the 'Net.

6 I seem to recall that when I was a kid I was able to listen to the radio and watch the game with the sound off and the two were synchronized. Now there's a delay, which is terrible because I wanted to listen to the Mets broadcast when the game was on ESPN but of course there's a really annoying delay that makes it unbearable to do that.

Does anyone know if they started doing this precisely because they wanted to chain people to the television and its commercials or what?

6 Is that what it was like on the radio in the old days? I used to listen to ball games all the time in the days before cable, as did my older brother (older by a number of years). We've discussed this and we don't remember radio broadcasts as excrutiatingly bad as Sterling-Waldman. Even when Scooter was blathering on about cannoli there was still an attempt to describe the game as it was unfolding. There are whole stretches of Yanks radio broadcasts when you don't know what is going on, or at best it is described after the fact.

1 I'm with you bp1. I don't listen to the ESPN broadcasts, though I turned up the volume for Morgan's "in game" interview with Willie on Sunday night, and quickly muted it again after Morgan referred to Oliver Perez as Odalis Perez. Sure, it was an easy mistake to make, but Morgan makes far too many of them for my enjoyment.

I think the low of the Subway coverage hit on Monday morning. An ESPN radio update offered a quick recap of the Yankees Sunday night victory and played an audio highlight of A-Rod's sacrifice fly -- rather than his 27th home run! It was hilarious if you can maintain a sense of humor about the Yankee-hating pricks at ESPN.

I'm also with you re: Lumpy and Chuckles on the New York Yankees Radio Network. Their homer erotic (tradmark pending) coverage is amusing to me in the same way that it might be amusing to watch a Yanks game in a mental ward filled with Yankees fans. Good times!

7 Some delays are caused by multiple satellite links (here in Canada we always get a sports broadcast a couple seconds later than in the States); weren't additional delays put in place so that objectionable material could be cut out before reaching the airwaves?

I live in the Bay Area, so I've feel lucky to get Jon Miller for quite some time now. I believe he is much better on the radio though and his TV broadcasts are hampered by Joe Morgan.
For some reason Suzyn really chaps my hide. I can handle Sterling's bit, but she just doesn't seem to add much at all.
I am really glad the baseball world will get to hear, IMO, the worst stadium announcer in all of baseball at this year's All Star Game...Renell. She is horrible and can't excite a crowd to save her life (not that Giants fans can do anything but offer pseudo-excitement when BLB hits). You just don't realize how good of an announcer you have until they are gone. Hopefully Mr. Sheppard will be around for many years of enjoyment.

7 I live in northwest Jersey where it is difficult for some reason to pick up WCBS radio. The further you drive from my town, and the further you drive from the city, the better WCBS comes in. Weird.
Radiowise I get the games on 96.7 FM which is out of Newburgh, NY or some such place. That broadcast syncs up with the TV, (radio is actually a split second ahead of the TV - but when you factor in the 5 second delay in John Sterling's brain it's close enough) which is my preference when ESPN or Fox are doing the game.
I dislike Joe Buck's bluster as much as I dislike Joe Morgan's stupidity.

Ouch! No love for you pal Steve Goldman??? The NY Sun doesn't get a mention, but the Hartford Courant does? Harsh. You should give some props to the Sun, just for employing Steve.

13 Marchman's great too.

2 I can't explain it, just like I can't explain why I have a thing for brunettes over blondes. I do hate that the ESPN broadcast spends a lot of time with the cameras pointed at the broadcast booth, almost making it like Miller and Morgan are more the show than the game itself. Sure, they all do that, but ESPN seems to do it a LOT for long periods of time. I find that hyper annoying.

3 Oh c'mon. They are not delivering the state of the union address, and I'm quite sure they realize that not everyone listening to the game is listening to every single inning on the radio. Please. Baseball on radio is supposed to be fun, light hearted entertainment. To make it more than that is to suck whatever charm there is about radio baseball - the best of all sports on the radio. I did grow up during the Scooter, White, and Messer days, so having someone talk about Aunt Milly's 100th birthday or ask about the Cannoli during a late inning rally is no big deal to me and seems perfectly natural. Losing track of the game or the count? Eh. Who cares. I'll know who won the game at the end, right? The rest I can read in the papers (or on the blogs these days).

7 Not surprised, as every time I read one of your posts I invariably find myself nodding in agreement (or laughing - or both).

TV: SNY. Cohen knows his stuff and never overdoes it; Darling is much improved and Keith is Keith -- liable to say anything. Exciting.

I enjoy Singleton, miss Kaat and think Kay has too much ego.

As a small-minded miserable Met partisan, I tune to the YES postgame after Yankee losses just to watch everyone suffer. I find Yallof and the SNY postgame a little creepy: I don't need "newsmen" cheering for my team.

Radio: Howie really knows the Mets but enjoyed him a lot more with Gary. I have a hard time following plays as called by McCarthy. It's all a matter of milliseconds but my mind wants to know where the runners went before McCarthy gets around to telling me.

Waldman is unlistenable, but I love Sterling. I could do without the cheesy catchphrases, but love to hear him call the action: he has a great rythym and pitch, like he's doing some exalted form of singing.

Blog: Mets -- Faith and fear in flushing. Yankees -- Goldman?

Papers: I read the News.

TV: SNY. Cohen knows his stuff and never overdoes it; Darling is much improved and Keith is Keith -- liable to say anything. Exciting.

I enjoy Singleton, miss Kaat and think Kay has too much ego.

As a small-minded miserable Met partisan, I tune to the YES postgame after Yankee losses just to watch everyone suffer. I find Yallof and the SNY postgame a little creepy: I don't need "newsmen" cheering for my team.

Radio: Howie really knows the Mets but enjoyed him a lot more with Gary. I have a hard time following plays as called by McCarthy. It's all a matter of milliseconds but my mind wants to know where the runners went before McCarthy gets around to telling me.

Waldman is unlistenable, but I love Sterling. I could do without the cheesy catchphrases, but love to hear him call the action: he has a great rythym and pitch, like he's doing some exalted form of singing.

Blog: Mets -- Faith and fear in flushing. Yankees -- Goldman?

Papers: I read the News.

Sorry, didn't mean to post twice

8 To me, one of the biggest differences between Rizzuto and Sterling has to do with authenticity.

Rizzuto, well, he just didn't have much of an internal censor; whatever he thought just came out of his mouth. So we always knew about his bride Cora, his fear of snakes, bugs and lightning, every city's best restaurants (the ones where he didn't have to pay), his love for Dimaggio and his dislike for Stengel. Late in his career, he would even talk openly about listening to the last few innings while driving home.

But he was always completely real. None of it was rehearsed or rewritten, none of it was planned schtick - it was just Scooter. Even his "Holy cow!" was real - it wasn't just a tag line, he meant it every time.

With Sterling, on the other hand, everything is scripted, nothing is spontaneous. Practically his entire broadcast consistes of prerehearsed, tired routines. He doesn't describe the game much, he just goes from one stock phrase to another. For his home run calls, I don't think he's necessarily really excited, he just knows how to sound excited.

Give me Scooter any day.

By the way, I highly recommend trying to find a copy of "The Poetry of Phil Rizzuto." It's brilliant. There's a selection of it here: http://www.cosmicbaseball.com/oholycow.html

I was listening to the Yanks radio broadcast yesterday. It is amazing that Sterling and Waldman have such a revulsion to stats. In one sequence when they cited batting average, they used the disclaimer "you don't want to rely on numbers too much but ..."

They didn't do that once in that inning but EVERY time they cited a batting average. So three or four times, "you don't want to rely on numbers too much, but ..." Alright, we get it -- numbers are unreliable.

The problem is that we cannot think of these guys as being anything but Yankee employees who want to please their boss (Steinbrenner, Cashman and maybe Torre). Sometimes to keep the level of cordiality they have with the manager, they are less inclined to criticize them.

When Steinbrenner was pushing hard to get a new stadium built on the west side, Sterling couldn't shut up about how decrepit the current stadium was and how the Bronx confines were horrible. Every freaking game -- all the time.

Another example, Sweeny Murti on WFAN. Since becoming the Yankee beat reporter, I find him less willing to criticize Torre. Most recent example was when he was asked why Torre took out Wang one out away from a complete game. He kept saying that Wang was already at 113 pitches and they didn't want to push him. But when asked whether one more batter would have really been pushing him, he just hemmed and hawed. He couldn't even bring himself to say, "Yea, I don't understand the reasoning." It was like he was afraid Torre was listening and would not interview him the next time. Bizarre.

Does anybody else take pleasure in the herniated disc of Randy? I didn't think so. Much too classy of group of fans for that. Recover quickly "Unit".

21 I don't, seriously. I do feel a little relief.
But I'm trying, really hard, not to be disappointed that Schilling's MRI showed no injury.

22 He's just a 40+ yr old pitcher with a lot of miles on him. Honestly I'd rather him pitch decent approx. 50% of the time just to create a rift in the BOS clubhouse (like that is difficult) and fan-base.

23 Yeah, it's not a baseball thing, it's a Schilling thing. Though I despise him less since the inception of 38pitches -- I may be the only one.

8 I don't think I got my point across very well. I wasn't so much referring to Sterling's lack of following the game as I was what JL25and3 got into in 19, and what bp1 said in 15. Yes, Sterling is not Rizzuto, but there are enough similarities that, IMHO, in the minds of the Yankee brass, its close enough.

Maybe those similarities are superficial, as JL correctly points out, but I don't think they ("the Yankees") care.

22 MRI's aren't always perfect. ;)

21 No, but I'm much happier the Yanks assumed the risk of Rocket's groin (usually shorter healing time) compared with the risk of Unit's back (usually much longer healing time).

5 Simple. Replace them. While I was never a fan of the Scooter, who was, more often than not, misinformed, he at least had charm. And, as was noted in 19, he was real.

While broadcasting has come a long way in terms of the sophistication of the analysis, it has also lost a lot in terms of the language. While you certainly will learn a lot more about the way the game is played and how players approach their jobs from the better modern day announcers, I don't believe, other, of course, than Vin Scully, there is anyone in the broadcasting booth anywhere in America that has a voice or a way with language that Mel Allen and Red Barber had.

But back to Mr. and Ms. Pinstripe. Her voice is irritating, but I guess she can't help that. Her demeanor in the booth is shrill, but she can't help that. John Sterling, whom I never liked, has become a caricature of himself.

While Sterling does have a pleasant voice and a good command of the game, his overwhelming need to bludgeon the listener to death makes him almost as unlistenable to as his sidekick, Ms. Pinstripe.

Lest ye be thinking that this is the ranting of a Sox fan against anything Yankee, not so. Other than Ken Singleton, whom I wouldn't say I dislike enough to make an issue of it, I think the Yankee TV crew does a great job. It's my sense that the readership of this board isn't real fond of Michael Kay, something I'm not sure I understand. IMHO, he has a very pleasant voice and he calls a good and knowledgeable game.

Another vote for Rizzuto & White.
For this past weekend's coverage, I'll vote for the YES coverage -- if only for Leiter over Morgan & Miller. Get Jon a new broadcast partner. Didn't see Saturday's game, so can't say. And while Kay is/can be annoying, listening to most other teams' announcers makes me actually, um, not dislike him.

I'm out of market so don't get the radio or newspapers (don't even visit their websites).

Mainly I go to the blogs: Bronx Banter, Was Watching, Peter Abrahams (avoid the comments there for the most part), Replacement Level, NoMaas, No Sense Worrying. And of course Baseball Musings.

25 Agreed on 38pitches. Prior to his blog, my sense of Schilling had been he may be an asshole, but he's our asshole. I really think he's doing a great job of deconstructing his starts, good and bad.

23 Hey, standuptriple, did you ever see that commemorative baseball card I worked up (per your request) after the latest Schilling near no-hitter?
http://i14.tinypic.com/4m2yg3r.jpg

He hasn't been the same since...

Fave TV - Jim Kaat & Bobby Murcer, although I also like Flaherty, Girardi, Leiter & Paulie when they're on. I'll tolerate Kay for those other guys. I don't really like the Mets announcers although I don't hear them much being in Boston. I have extra innings but only to watch the Yanks.

Radio - I can catch WCBS in the car in certain spots on my way home from work (even up here in Mass.) I tolerate Sterling & Waldman because I have to, but her voice is just creepy to me.

I actually prefer the SOX TV announcers to the YES announcers.

I would rather watch the grainy extra innings YES feed than a clear HD ESPN feed - I can't stand the ESPN announcers (all of them).

Watching the Yanks on Extra Innings when they're showing the other teams' feed really makes you appreciate the YES announcers for all their warts.

Dislikes for me usually come down to the voice (if it's annoying like Kay) or stupid catch phrases or repetitions.

30 I really don't know what to say. Southern hospitality at its finest. Well done, sir!

29 Huh, so I'm not the only one.
But it's not just that he's actually informative. I think I might be reacting, so to speak, against the mainstream media's umbrage. "How dare he." Or, "sure, he can say all that stuff because nobody will hold him to account for it." I'm not expressing this well. Maybe it's just that he's giving the finger to his media critics. There's something admirable about that. (He says, grudgingly.)

We mute the TV broadcasts whenever the Yankees are on down here in the south & listen to XM radio for the play by play. J & S are just fine. Most other teams radio broadcasters are lame, particularly Boston's. Frankly, if you can watch it, why do you need that a$$ole McCarver describing the play differently than you just saw, or Joe Suck mentioning A-rod's salary EVERY TIME the camera is on him, or the Yankees payroll, and on and on. The delay between TV & XM means we can see the action, then listen to J & S describe it. Its quite entertaining and remarkably accurate. Yeah, J & S are just fine...

35 Right - and the one thing I will add to my rant about ESPN 1 is how Miller says things like "Well that's something we haven't seen from him in months" when the camera caught A-Rod smiling in the dugout. I mean - geez. Gimme a break. The guy is just fingernails on a chalkboard.

32 Thanks. Glad you liked it (it took longer than I thought it would, but it was fun putting it together). The way Schilling's luck has gone maybe I should work up a Red Sox team picture card (or possibly an Auburn Tigers card for this fall). ;-)

As a Yankee fan, I believe watching and listening to ESPN is like being stuck in jail. S and W are much better than ESPN. Agree with watching the Muts broadcast is top notch because of the chemistry. Why can't the Yanks go out and have some better announcers, too? Miss Kaat a great bunch. He make watching baseball fun. However Murcer and whomever without Kaye is great. I'm stuck in Florida with DTV and am limited with choices.