Say goodbye to Jim Palmer and Kevin Brown for 2021

[HowAboutThat]

Buck Britton may be incredibly insightful and brilliant and etc. but so what. YOU CAN HEAR  THE INTERVIEW AFTER THE DOGGAM GAME. THE GAME IS HAPPENING NOW. Every pitch is never before and never again. An interview is a discussion you can hear any time. Why not have Buck Britton as your special guest before or after the game? Why in the fourth inning while pitches are being thrown?

 If you really think that listening to an interview while watching a game is no different than watching the game without the interview, that is a de facto admission that either the game is not interesting, and you do not care about the next pitch, because you’ve already decided it is not as interesting as an interview, or the commentary is not interesting, because if either were interesting, the other would be a distraction. Radio is different because the radio guys have to paint the whole picture, and most fail utterly. Ours are not alone in being awful in that category. But there is no valid reason for an interview taking place over the game. It might work if the interview only takes places in between pitches, with proper pauses for game play description, but that never happens.

 I appreciate that you think otherwise, and that’s fine, but this is also one of the huge problems of broadcast baseball: The inherent admission that baseball is so boring we have to have other BS in an attempt to retain audience.

[Frobby]

We’ll just have to agree to disagree.   I suspect the broadcast companies wouldn’t run these in-game interviews if they thought the majority of viewers/listeners disliked them.   And there are a lot more fans watching/listening during the game than there are on the pre- and post-game shows.

This comes down to a matter of personal taste, not fundamentals of broadcasting. And I think it’s likely your taste is in the minority by a solid margin, though I don’t know.    I suspect broadcasters have researched it and do know.  

[Triple Crown]

7 hours ago, Philip said:

Buck Britton may be incredibly insightful and brilliant and etc. but so what. YOU CAN HEAR  THE INTERVIEW AFTER THE DOGGAM GAME. THE GAME IS HAPPENING NOW. Every pitch is never before and never again. An interview is a discussion you can hear any time. Why not have Buck Britton as your special guest before or after the game? Why in the fourth inning while pitches are being thrown?

 If you really think that listening to an interview while watching a game is no different than watching the game without the interview, that is a de facto admission that either the game is not interesting, and you do not care about the next pitch, because you’ve already decided it is not as interesting as an interview, or the commentary is not interesting, because if either were interesting, the other would be a distraction. Radio is different because the radio guys have to paint the whole picture, and most fail utterly. Ours are not alone in being awful in that category. But there is no valid reason for an interview taking place over the game. It might work if the interview only takes places in between pitches, with proper pauses for game play description, but that never happens.

 I appreciate that you think otherwise, and that’s fine, but this is also one of the huge problems of broadcast baseball: The inherent admission that baseball is so boring we have to have other BS in an attempt to retain audience.

Agree 100% and if they're going to do the interviews, which I guess they are. At least show the game on the full screen, I don't think it's necessary to be able to see the interviewee talking. JMO

[Matt Bennett]

I watch a lot of the games with my girlfriend, who is a Nats fan, and she half pays attention. Brown can stray from the game when it’s a blowout or the color analyst entertains one of his off-topic comments, but she perks up and finds him amusing. She also likes his animated descriptions when something exciting happens. Naturally I like him as well. It’s also easy to be enjoyable when compared to Garceau. Brown will only get better as the team gets better and another team will pick him up if we don’t lock him up. He has a Joe Buck voice. Which is funny by the look of him. The voice and the person don’t exactly match. Brown and McDonald were my favorite combo I think, although Brown and Palmer were good too. 

[Orioles1954]

Brown really improved over the year. Arnold is OK, Garceau needs to retire and Palmer/McDonald are gold. As for Newman, she does OK on color but her PBP started horrible and sunk to the depths of Marianas Trench bad as the season progressed. They’ll probably keep her so I’ll just tune out whenever she’s on.

[Moose Milligan]

9 hours ago, Philip said:

Buck Britton may be incredibly insightful and brilliant and etc. but so what. YOU CAN HEAR  THE INTERVIEW AFTER THE DOGGAM GAME. THE GAME IS HAPPENING NOW. Every pitch is never before and never again. An interview is a discussion you can hear any time. Why not have Buck Britton as your special guest before or after the game? Why in the fourth inning while pitches are being thrown?

 If you really think that listening to an interview while watching a game is no different than watching the game without the interview, that is a de facto admission that either the game is not interesting, and you do not care about the next pitch, because you’ve already decided it is not as interesting as an interview, or the commentary is not interesting, because if either were interesting, the other would be a distraction. Radio is different because the radio guys have to paint the whole picture, and most fail utterly. Ours are not alone in being awful in that category. But there is no valid reason for an interview taking place over the game. It might work if the interview only takes places in between pitches, with proper pauses for game play description, but that never happens.

 I appreciate that you think otherwise, and that’s fine, but this is also one of the huge problems of broadcast baseball: The inherent admission that baseball is so boring we have to have other BS in an attempt to retain audience.

That is not a de-facto admission that the game is not interesting...because we're still watching the game with our eyes and haven't changed the channel.  

If the game wasn't interesting, I wouldn't be watching in the first place.

Your move.

[SilverRocket]

There are three kinds of interviews:

- The ones with a baseball person who's at the game, like Eddie Murray in the booth or a player on the field. These people are watching the game, know the game, and tend to pause when something interesting is happening on the field to let the commentators do their thing. Totally fine with these.

- Baseball person on a zoom, like Mike Elias or Buck Britton. These don't flow well at all, but often provide a bit of insight to what's happening behind the scenes, so they're still interesting.

- Non-baseball person. Pretty much always awful.