One of the most common criticisms leveled at today’s sports media is that they rarely bring us any feel-good stories. I hope the following will serve as antidote to all the doom and gloom in the world today.
From Phil Mushnick in today’s NY Post :
In his 24th year as a Mets TV broadcaster ” more accurately, a voice of Cablevision/the Dolan Family ” Fran Healy is very likely approaching his final days in the Mets’ booth.
The new Comcast/Time-Warner/Mets channel next season takes over, and Cablevision is expected, as always, to make things as impossible as possible for a rival that owns the live sports programming that it used to own. That would make Healy (above), a Cablevision/Dolan lackey, an unlikely shipper.
And it’s probably too late for a makeover.
Healy was very strong in two broadcasting categories:
1) He always put the same happy/silly face on everything Mets. Last month, after the Mets blew a 9-7, ninth-inning lead at home to lose, 12-9, to the Brewers, Healy said that the big story of the game was Mike Piazza’s five RBIs. Typical.
2) Healy was always very viewer-friendly to the youngest members of the audience, meaning he spoke to everyone as if they were six-year-olds. Late Thursday night from St. Louis, Healy said this of Mickey Mantle: “Mantle may have been one of the most idolized baseball players ever.” Who knew?
Note to the New York Yankees and Bob Shepard : Kate Smith is dead. An act of mass suicide excepted, fans cannot “join” her in the singing of “God Bless America”, though they can chirp along to a recording of the screechy Philadelphia icon if they so desire.
Who was it that compared Fred Willard’s characters in “Best In Show” and the Christopher Guest movies to Fran Healy? What a bullseye that was…
http://www.nndb.com/people/120/000024048/
“Best in Show was perhaps Willard’s funniest performance, as the clueless play-by-play announcer at a dog show. “Chris Guest sent me a tape of the Westminster Dog Show and he said, ‘Notice that Joe Garagiola (the retired baseball player and sportscaster) has taken no effort to learn anything about dogs.’ That was my cue. I was familiar with Joe from his baseball broadcasting and just picked up his rhythms and magnified the ex- jock habit of being self deprecating while at the same time reminding us of their sports background.”
I was the one responsible for the Fred Willard call, and I regret that I’ll never again have occasion to make that comparison once this season comes to a close. Actually, no. No, I don’t regret that at all.
TWENTY FOUR YEARS?
anyone have any decent video footage of healy and le’ grande’ orange’ (aka rusty ataub )announcing games ? man, i’d pay top dollar for that ! talk about goofballs on parade.
aw shit…..speaking of goofball, i just burned the garlic bread. my wife is gonna kill me….. there goes dinner.