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Orioles Announcers, Where Would You Rank Them?


sfosfan

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Thorne isn't great... until you start ranking all the TV play-by-play guys out there and quickly realize that he's not actually that bad. I would naturally put him 14-16th as a general estimation, but I think if you ranked them all, you'd find his name a little bit higher simply due to the lack of good broadcasters in the game today.

Jon Miller is hands down the greatest the game has ever had (in my ears, anyway). I'm far more pissed at Angelos about the Miller debacle than about how he handled Davey, Raffy, Alomar, Mussina or Belle.

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Thorne isn't great... until you start ranking all the TV play-by-play guys out there and quickly realize that he's not actually that bad. I would naturally put him 14-16th as a general estimation, but I think if you ranked them all, you'd find his name a little bit higher simply due to the lack of good broadcasters in the game today.

Jon Miller is hands down the greatest the game has ever had (in my ears, anyway). I'm far more pissed at Angelos about the Miller debacle than about how he handled Davey, Raffy, Alomar, Mussina or Belle.

I believe that Chuck Thompson and Vin Scully were the best of my lifetime. I really liked Miller, but his shtick was close to the edge. I have no problem listening to him do games still. I FAR prefer the humor and personality of Gary Thorne. As well as his top shelf (...responsibly) voice.

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How are multiple guys on the Hated list and being called out for being Homers, yet Hunter is no where to be seen?

Also, How can John Miller and Gary Thorne be on the same list as Joe Buck and Tim McCarver?? o.O The 2nd list even mentions Miller while listing the many "great" announcers that have been in Baltimore (while talking about Palmer).

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No real credibility to that list. There was a much better list (done by teams, not by specific announcers) on fangraphs last year. The O's announcers were somewhere in the middle.

Yeah Joe and Fred were exactly in the middle on the fangraphs Radio piece, which was actually a well organized listener poll.

I'm not sure where the TV guys ranked when they did their TV rankings though..

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Gary isn't a "great" baseball broadcaster, but he's endeared himself to O's fans in recent years, IMO. You really have to listen to him a lot to appreciate what he brings. He's not boring, he has fun out there, and he's pretty hilariously inaccurate at times. And few people can have a report with Jim Palmer - they go well together.

Gary's like our weird drunk uncle.

Is that the impetus behind the twitter page Drunk Gary Thorne perhaps? Love reading that one. But when I think of a drunk uncle I think of Joe Biden- the things that come out of his mouth sometimes makes me scratch my head (my favorite 3 letter word is j-o-b-s). I don't get that way with Gary though. Guess I'll listen more closely now. :D

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Thorne is a TV baseball announcer. Different animal than the radio man. Thorne's job is not so much to describe the game, as it is Joe Angel's, as to serve and an intermediary between the average fan and the analyst. He needs to be personable and have a good rapport with the color guy, more than he needs sophisticated baseball knowledge. He is one of the very best at this job IMO.

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Angel's above average...knowledgable but kind of robotic in his delivery.

Manfra is horrible. Doesn't understand the subtleties of baseball and is terrible at accurately describing the action on the field.

Yeah, Thorne, great energy, voice...not much baseball IQ. Has he ever called the right pitch/location?

Palmer...excellent.

Hunter...so sickening sweet I want to gag.

Bordick is well, BORING.

Dempsey, whatever.

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Thorne just referenced that Reimold take more pitches than any other player in the majors right now. Strangely enough Dan-O started a thread about pitches per at bat today.:scratchchinhmm:

I really enjoy listening to you Thorne!!!! Keep reading the OH!

Though I do miss Jon Miller, best in the game in my opinion. But I will take our announcers any day over Rockies, Yankees, Rays, Red Sux, and many others, but those are the WORST in my opinion.

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Is that the impetus behind the twitter page Drunk Gary Thorne perhaps? Love reading that one. But when I think of a drunk uncle I think of Joe Biden- the things that come out of his mouth sometimes makes me scratch my head (my favorite 3 letter word is j-o-b-s). I don't get that way with Gary though. Guess I'll listen more closely now. :D

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Thorne just referenced that Reimold take more pitches than any other player in the majors right now. Strangely enough Dan-O started a thread about pitches per at bat today.:scratchchinhmm:

I really enjoy listening to you Thorne!!!! Keep reading the OH!

Though I do miss Jon Miller, best in the game in my opinion. But I will take our announcers any day over Rockies, Yankees, Rays, Red Sux, and many others, but those are the WORST in my opinion.

Don't forget the Homer for the White Sox who orgasms everytime the Sox hit a home run. An no, you can't make me "put in on the boooooooard".

But I actually like that one guy for the Red Sox, especially when he says "Yawkey Way". ;)

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Ha ha. Gary at least corrects himself mid sentence, but yes you wonder where his mind is sometimes.

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Thorne is almost the perfect TV announcer for this area. Just throw out the mistakes, which I know is hard as they come pretty quick and often. As a TV guy he has two jobs: sorta keep tabs on the action (we can see it, that's the beauty of TV) and interact with the color. And he does those great, especially with Palmer. If you have access in some way, listen to some of the games Palmer did with Hunter the year before Thorne. You can hear the contempt in Palmer's voice, he had enough of that idiot jabbering next to him. Then, listen to the first month with Thorne, it was like Palmer was reborn. I think a lot of people turned around on Palmer at the same time Thorne started simply because Palmer went from being an arrogant egotist to being a confident HoF'er with appropriate anecdotes (even if they were mostly self centered). The fact he gets along so well with Thorne is HUGE. And he can even do some games with Hunter without sounding like he wants to kill him.

Thorne and Palmer bring out the best in each other. You want your TV broadcast crew to be two guys you're sitting with in the stands, talking the game with you. Or the bar, whatever. They're good at that. You're watching the game, that's how you know Thorne isn't entirely accurate pretty much constantly. But he's engagingly wrong.

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