Though praised for their “excellent work” by the Houston Chronicle’s David Barron, the truth is, no one polarizes baseball fans quite like Fox’s duo of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. Either you wish someone would put a plastic bag over Buck’s face….or you’d like to see the same done to both of them.
Both were quick to declare that pitcher Kenny Rogers of the Rangers should spend the All-Star break anywhere but Detroit.
“I think he should have been elected to the team, and I don’t think he should pitch in the game,” McCarver said. “I think it would embarrass Kenny. I think it would embarrass baseball, and I don’t think Kenny will make the decision to show up Tuesday night or Monday, as importantly, for the press conference he almost has to attend.”
Buck added, “You try to find highlights for guys … and here’s Kenny Rogers. What highlight do you think we’re going to run? You’re almost bound to tell the story and back it up with video, and it would seem, at least to me, to be a shame to have to run that embarrassing video.
“I’m not going to be Dr. Phil and try to figure it out from a distance, but take a timeout and just collect things and take the suspension and move on.”
My breaking point with these two was during the 2003 World series where after Roger Clemens hit a single, Buck and McCarver reacted
with outrage when Clemens did not attempt to break up the double play that ensued in the next at bat. One would presume that an AL pitcher would get a pass as far as not being adept at taking out a man turning a dp (or baserunning acumen in general) but not Buck and Mac. Not only did they yammer and sputter in a ear-splitting manner after the dp, they spent the rest of the half-inning excoriating Clemens. It was at that point where I put on the local Yanks radio broadcast. Yanks crew and audio/video discrepancy was far preferable than those gits.
McCarver is starting to remind me of Ross Perot during his appearance on Larry King Live when he got really angry and huffy with Al Gore. McCarver flies off the handle over the dumbest things and has lost most of his dignity in the process. He used to be decent when he did Mets games a few years back, but now he’s just a sad, yammering old man with cheap hair dye.
Another FOX classic: Brett Boones mono-syllabic grunting during the 2003 ALCS. Up to that point, I had given Boone the benefit
of the doubt in regards to the ‘roid rumors, but after that series, I
became convinced that he must have been popping down to Tijuana to pick up suppliments for his off-season conditioning regimen while he was with the Padres. That, and the zit on his neck on his ESPN/MLB player pics.