(if you’re thinking this post was just a cheap excuse to post the above song…you’re totally right)
Detroit Athletic Co.’s Dan Holmes compares the experience of listening to Tigers radio broadcasters Dan Dickerson and Jim Price to “someone invading a hole in my head and inflicting pain…it’s brutal.” While crediting the former with “a very good voice”, Holmes considers the typical Detroit broadcast to be “Dickerson telling you what he knows about baseball while he occasionally interjects the pitches and what happens on the field.” (link swiped from Repoz and Baseball Think Factory)
Dickerson: There’s a grounder, the throw across and it pulls the first baseman. Martinez is out. No, now he’s being called safe. [LOOOONG PAUSE] That ball was hit to Beltre and he threw the ball high and wide and it was dropped by Pena. Martinez is safe on an error.
What was he watching? How does he not tell us WHERE the groundball was hit immediately, and what happened at first CORRECTLY the first time? It’s radio, you can pause a millisecond and wait to see what the umpire at first calls. Instead, Dickerson just uses his verbal shorthand and fails to call the play correctly the first time. He does this usually once every few games. He actually does.
If I could have a three wishes, I’d use two of them in the typical way (revenge against my enemies and all-encompassing wealth and power), but the third, the third wish, I’d use that to give Dan Dickerson the gift of description. He really has no idea how to describe something in an explicit way, which is really THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF HIS JOB. he’s like pone of those annoying friends who starts conversations in the middle of a story and expects us to understand what the hell he’s talking about.
There’s a drive and he dives and it’s caught out there deep on the warning track. what a play!
WHERE was that drive and WHO hit it? And WHO caught it WHERE? And HOW many guys were on base?!? And what’s the score?
[Driving off the road into a ditch]