Prior to the Mets’ comeback win over the Marlins yesterday, Howie Rose’s lesser half, Wayne Hagin referenced Angel Pagan’s attendance at Saturday’s Miguel Cotto / Yuri Foreman fight at Yankee Stadium, an event that Hagin (above, left) claimed took place 36 years after Ali/Norton at the old Stadium.  Trouble is, said fight took place 34 years ago, and gaffe provoked Uni Watch’s Paul Lukas to lose all patience with the not-so-Amazin’ announcer, calling him “a guy who rarely seems to do his homework, always chimes in with the pitch-imperfect comment, and has basically become unlistenable.”  Other than that, though, Wayne’s doing an awesome job!

Since hitting town in 2008, he™s shown himself to be the broadcasting equivalent of a four-A ballplayer: His voice is a fairly serviceable instrument, but he doesn™t have the presence or sophistication to deploy it effectively. His sensibility ” let™s call it suburban lite ” is far too white-bread for New York and makes for a tragic mismatch with Rose, who™s a New Yorker to his core (and a much savvier announcer besides).

Hagin leans far too heavily on overheated decriptors and repetition. It™s never œa nice catch; it™s always œan outstanding catch, I want to tell you, just a wonderful, wonderful play, all delivered in that annoyingly righteous tone that sounds like a father imparting life lessons to a 12-year-old. By insisting that every play is exceptional, Hagin instead conveys the notion that none of them are.

He also gets himself in trouble when his mouth writes checks that his brain can™t cash. Example: Out of nowhere, he™ll drop the word œhowever into a sentence, even though he™s not counterpointing anything. You can hear him realize this type of mistake as he™s making it, and then he ends up wandering down a blind rhetorical alley in an attempt to make the misplaced term make sense. This would be amusing if it weren™t such torture to listen to.