Sunday night liberation

When I found out that ESPN was shaking up its Sunday Night Baseball announcing team, replacing both Jon Miller and Joe Morgan, this was my first reaction. In short, sheer jubilation.

I've never had a problem with Jon Miller; in fact, I think he's a pretty good play-by-play announcer. As he's gotten older he's become more prone to making mistakes, but he typically catches them and corrects them. I like his voice and the energy he brings to a game, and he has a good feel for the rhythm of a baseball game. Others feel differently, but I've never really understood most of the complaints about him. He'll be missed, at least by me.

More stuff
An aside: one of the most common complaints that I've heard about Jon Miller is that he mispronounces Carlos Beltrán's name (obviously, this is a complaint that I hear mostly from Mets fans). Now if there's anyone who reads this who has more expertise in Spanish than I, please correct me, but from four years of studying the language, I'm 99% sure that I have this right. Beltrán's name is spelled as I have it, with an accent mark on the "a." Typically in Spanish the penultimate syllable is accented, unless there's a mark as there in in this case. Additionally, all "a" sounds in Spanish are short (like saying "ah," like when a doctor's examining your throat). Long story short, Jon Miller (who's fluent in Spanish, if you're wondering) is right, and everyone else is wrong.

Joe Morgan, on the other hand, is the cause of my glee. I don't think I need to go into why I and practically all other baseball fans dislike him; hell, there was a whole website devoted to his suckitude for a period of several years. Suffice it to say, I'm happy for the change, and this all has me thinking of how enjoyable SNB could become next season. That all depends, though, on who the new team is. Fire up the Speculation Machine!

Play-by-play

Jon Sciambi: This is my first choice, as well as a fairly unlikely one. ESPN's probably going to go with a well-known game with a lot of experience, a person who the casual fan already knows. Sciambi is not that. However, he is one of my favorite baseball announcers.

He has experience with the regional networks of both the Marlins and the Braves, and he is presently working for ESPN, usually in mid-week games. You may have never seen him call a game; trust me, he's good.

One of the things I like most about Sciambi - and a marked change from the old crew - is his progressive take on the game. He's not an old-school baseball guy, and he's well-versed in sabermetrics and advanced analysis methods. He's still mindful, though, of the fact that the vast majority of the baseball-watching public is not on the cutting edge or even near it, and works advanced thinking into his game calls in an easily accessible way. He talks about doing just that here. In my eyes, Sciambi really brings the whole package, and would be a great straight man for a SNB broadcast team.

Dan Shulman, Dave O'Brien: I don't know as much about either Shulman or O'Brien as I do about Sciambi, so I may be underrating them, but in watching games that they've called, they've been pretty middle-of-the-road. They seem to be roughly replacement level announcers - they aren't outstanding, as far as I can tell, but they aren't terrible enough to drag a broadcast down. They'd be adequate, and because of that they're the most likely choices (that, and the fact that like Sciambi, both are currently employed by ESPN).

Chris Berman: OH HOLY GOD PLEASE NO. All I need is to have to listen to "BACK BACK BACK BACK" and "HE HIT THAT ALL THE WAY TO KENDALL PARK" every week. I hate almost everything about Chris Berman. It's bad enough that he exists at all; please don't let him ruin my favorite sport more than he's already ruined football. Since this is what I want least, it is of course the thing that is probably going to happen.

Color commentator

Steve Stone: I used to hate Stone when he was with the Cubs, back when he and Chip Caray were on WGN together almost daily. It had little or nothing to do with Stone, I just didn't like the Cubs much at the time. But in retrospect, he's a really good announcer. He knows a lot about the game, and he's particularly good at explaining what's happening without sounding smug and holier-than-thou (like Morgan did so much of the time) or sounding like a total idiot (the best example of this would be Rob Dibble). In particular, I like the fact that he had the guts to call out the Cubs that year for underachieving, which ended up getting him fired. That's something that I'd like to hear from a color guy - tell me why what a manager or team is doing is wrong, if it is. Don't pull punches if punches need to be thrown. He would be a very good pick, and is my favorite candidate.

Orel Hershiser: Again, Hershiser is pretty much a replacement level broadcaster, or maybe slightly above. I liked him relatively well on SNB, and he was definitely a step up from the atrocious Steve Phillips. He was willing to call out Morgan for some of the stupid things he'd say, and that's no small feat, considering how ensconced Morgan was at ESPN. He'd be acceptable, and maybe even good with Morgan out, but Stone would be far superior.

Jeff Brantley, Rick Sutcliffe: Kill me now. What I said above about Dibble goes for both of these former players as well. Neither is particularly intelligent, neither has a good television voice (the two are oddly similar, with a drawl that sounds vaguely self-important, like every comment is a gem worthy of immortality). Sutcliffe is more likely than Brantley, due to the fact that he's already an ESPN employee. Listening to either one weekly would be eardrum suicide. Sutcliffe or Brantley would be the worst possible scenario, and if either one ends up on SNB, I'd recommend against watching. It would be a Morgan redux.

So to sum up, the most likely team is probably one of Dan Shulman or Dave O'Brien teamed with Orel Hershiser. All are inoffensive, all are already employed by ESPN, and none are particularly widely disliked. That would be a good, solid team that I wouldn't hate, though it also wouldn't excite me. My dream duo would be Jon Sciambi and Steve Stone, but they're not likely (in large part because it's what I want most in the world). They'd be smart and progressive, and would actually improve the broadcast rather than dragging it down into stupidity and screaming. Which, incidentally, is exactly what would happen if ESPN put Berman and Sutcliffe or Brantley on Sunday Night Baseball. In fact, if that happens it's possible that Major League Baseball will fold on principle.

With the end of the Miller-Morgan administration, there's a chance that Sunday Night Baseball could turn the corner and become a truly great baseball broadcast. Knowing ESPN, though, they'll probably give us Chris Berman and Rick Sutcliffe, and I'll put a brick through my TV. At least now we'll all know what we're missing.