Post by turkeysandwich on Jul 13, 2011 16:58:03 GMT -5
As a Cardinal fan I was about to say the exact same thing.
I remember when he first started doing national games, I was really happy since he was my favorite announcer. He showed emotion and was really funny, but like everybody else has said, he has become terrible.
There was a game a few weeks ago where someone hit a dramatic home run (I can't remember if it was a walk-off or not) and he called with the same emotion that he would a fielder's choice.
I've heard people say the same thing about Curt Gowdy in the 70's, that he started out good, but ABC was having him do so many events and call so many games that he became disinterested and people could tell he really didn't care about the game he was calling. He would repeat the same facts over and over and didn't really call games with emotion like he once had.
That might have been the first of Pujols's back to back walk-offs against the Cubs. The second one was called by FSN Midwest's Dan McLaughlin (Buck's successor), and the difference in the passion level was overwhelming.
Yes, that was it.
I remember when Joe used to do radio with his dad, and they were hilarious. I remember for about 3 innings Jack was talking about how he wished that he had named Joe something more original than Joseph, so they were auditioning the different players names as Joe's new name. They settled on Oniled, which was Delino DeShields' name spelled backwards.
Ya know, after typing that, I wonder if he quit caring about sports after Jack Buck died. I know from my own experience, I don't enjoy baseball as much as when my dad was alive, although calling baseball games it not my job, if it was I would show some emotion. I had never thought about that.