Melanie Newman will not be doing the Apple TV baseball broadcast

[FlipTheBird]

3 hours ago, 86this said:

You were probably better off logging into the Orioles Hangout game thread.  Can Tony add a text-to-voice feature to the site?

If you just read the game threads you’d assume we lose every game by 100 and that the entire team got hurt. They’re a quagmire.

[Chavez Ravine]

When Aaron Hicks got the Bronx cheer on his first at bat today, Geoff Arnold said that Yankee fans are angry and never forget. Melanie said: “like a mean elephant”, which I thought was much more descriptive.

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, Can_of_corn said:

I get a lot of creep vibes from this thread.

That's because you and few others are always thinking everything is misogynistic or sexist or something because you disagree with their take. Maybe there are guys out there that don't like her because she's female, but the vast majority of the complaints is that she's just not very good at describing the action. 

Considering her lack of experience compared to many others when she was hired for a major league gig, you do have to question why she was selected. Was she really the 3rd or 4th best when she was hired along with Brown, Hollander, and Arnold? Perhaps she was, I don't know, but when you're clearly the worse of the group we have currently, I can understand why people question why she was hired.

I don't know who they interviewed or who they considered, but I do watch a ton of MiLB TV and hear a lot of announcers, and it's not hard to find a much more competent play by play announcer. 

At the end of the day, none of us know why she was hired so it's all just opinion. But just because someone has the opinion that she was hired to "check a box" does not make them necessarily misogynistic or sexist or a creep.

It just means when you take in the entire situation, they've come up with the opinion that she could be a diversity hire. I don't know if that opinion is right or not, but it's an opinion none the less and since none know the real answer, that opinion is as valid as an opposite opinion.

 

[Etch]

She was hired to drive me bat-shit crazy.

[Chavez Ravine]

On a random note,I was looking at the official photos of the O’s broadcast team
https://www.mlb.com/orioles/team/broadcasters

Arnold: looks like half the guys I went to school with at Wheaton High who are now heads of various IT departments.

Brown: looks like a cross between Eddie Haskell and the Alien autopsy.

Garceau, Hollander, Long, McDonald: have a sweaty glow like they got pulled off the 9th green to take their picture.

Johnson: looks like the My Pillow guy

Newman and Palmer: are beautiful people.

 

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Chavez Ravine

[HakunaSakata]

1 hour ago, Tony-OH said:

That's because you and few others are always thinking everything is misogynistic or sexist or something because you disagree with their take. Maybe there are guys out there that don't like her because she's female, but the vast majority of the complaints is that she's just not very good at describing the action. 

it certainly makes you a creep if you make a much broader comment (like the Webrick guy did) and imply that woman (in general) can't do jobs that men do. Maybe Melanie Newman isn't the best at her job, but there are plenty of women in the workforce who are. 

[FlipTheBird]

4 minutes ago, HakunaSakata said:

it certainly makes you a creep if you make a much broader comment (like the Webrick guy did) and imply that woman (in general) can't do jobs that men do. Maybe Melanie Newman isn't the best at her job, but there are plenty of women in the workforce who are. 

It’s for the best to just ignore Webbrick’s posts, trust me.

[Hank Scorpio]

9 minutes ago, HakunaSakata said:

it certainly makes you a creep if you make a much broader comment (like the Webrick guy did) and imply that woman (in general) can't do jobs that men do. Maybe Melanie Newman isn't the best at her job, but there are plenty of women in the workforce who are. 

Of course this is true. Most of the women on my team are better than me.

But it’s also very true that just because she’s a woman it doesn’t automatically make her GOOD at her job.

Performance matters.

 

Edited July 4, 2023 by Hank Scorpio

[Frobby]

7 minutes ago, Hank Scorpio said:

Of course this is true. Most of the women on my team are better than me.

But it’s also very true that just because she’s a woman it doesn’t automatically make her GOOD at her job.

Performance matters.

 

Which is why we should stick to discussing Newman’s merit as an announcer and not generalize about women in general or other jobs or speculate why she was hired.  

When her hiring was announced, there were some posters dissing her before she’d even announced a game.  One even said he just didn’t like the sound of a woman announcing a game.  I thought that was really unfair and said we should give her every fair chance.  Even when she wasn’t that good in her first season, I felt she (and the other new announcers) should be given a year or two to gain experience and mature.

Well, this is year four, and Melanie is not good at radio PBP and has improved very little in that time.  By contrast, Kevin Brown has gone from okay to excellent in the same period of time.  Geoff Arnold has become a solid if unspectacular PBP guy.   So, it’s very fair to judge Melanie’s body of work at this point, and she’s just not good at PBP.  No social commentary or generalizations required.  

She’s solid in other roles.   PBP just isn’t her strong suit.  

 

[InsideCoroner]

My opinion of Melanie has zero to do with her gender, and everything to do with her broadcasting style and ability (which detracts from my enjoyment of the game). Nobody thought it was sexist to say Jim Hunter was a bad TV play-by-play guy. It was just the truth.

[Etch]

Incompetence is gender blind.

 

[baltfan]

She is really bad at describing the action.  She described the play by O’Hearn to end the 7th as a “shot back to O’Hearn.”  O’Hearn didn’t pitch the ball, so I don’t know how it was going back to him. In another ar-bat, she described a “drive” that “will fall in”.  It was apparently a flare.  A drive implies that the ball was hit hard.  Balls hit hard only fall in when they split outfielders and are usually doubles.  This just dropped in front of an outfielder.  
 

There were other examples as well. She makes it difficult to visualize the action and often is too slow to call it so I know the result based upon the crowd prior to her setting the scene.  Sometimes, that is excusable because the action occurs so quickly you can’t beat the crowd, but it is notable when there is time and she still fails to create the scene better 

All of this said, she isn’t hopeless.  She just needs to recognize her issues and work on these things. Arnold isn’t that great either, but he is slightly better. 

[now]

It seems most folks like her in the studio and not the PBP booth. Simple solution, MASN!

[Tony-OH]

13 hours ago, HakunaSakata said:

it certainly makes you a creep if you make a much broader comment (like the Webrick guy did) and imply that woman (in general) can't do jobs that men do. Maybe Melanie Newman isn't the best at her job, but there are plenty of women in the workforce who are. 

Well I agree with you 100% that women can do many jobs as well or better then men can do. I didn't read his comment as they "can't do the jobs" but more they are hired sometimes because they are woman versus because they were the best for the job.

Now I've worked side by side with women my entire career, even in the military because I was in Military Intelligence. In my experiences, there are many women who are outstanding at their jobs. In fact, I've hired many women in the past for positions and never cared what their gender, race or sexual preference was. My goal was always to hire the best person for the position.

The reason questions come up with Newman is because she's just not very good at play by play. The fact that she's a woman does make you wonder was she hired because they wanted to add a woman to the team? I have no idea why she was hired or who she was up against, but I do think it is valid to have an opinion that she may have been hired based on her gender versus her over abilities.

Now, that doesn't mean that's the right answer. The fact is she's a very good pre and post game host and her in studio work is top notch if you ask me. Maybe they hired her to fill that role but also to let her work to improve his PBP skills. The problem is she's been at it for 3 years now and she has not really improved, especially on radio where a good announcer can form a mental picture for the listener in order for them to understand what happened. 

Thankfully, I don't listen to a ton of radio broadcasts, but when I have heard her, I can see why people get upset because she doesn't form that picture well. It's like she's a fan enjoying the play, but not very good at describing it to the listener who can't see anything. 

At the end of the day, the only issue I have is with people who think everyone who doesn't like her is sexist. I think what I've seen by most posts in this thread are valid concerns about her performance, not because of her gender.

[Tony-OH]

5 hours ago, baltfan said:

She is really bad at describing the action.  She described the play by O’Hearn to end the 7th as a “shot back to O’Hearn.”  O’Hearn didn’t pitch the ball, so I don’t know how it was going back to him. In another ar-bat, she described a “drive” that “will fall in”.  It was apparently a flare.  A drive implies that the ball was hit hard.  Balls hit hard only fall in when they split outfielders and are usually doubles.  This just dropped in front of an outfielder.  
 

There were other examples as well. She makes it difficult to visualize the action and often is too slow to call it so I know the result based upon the crowd prior to her setting the scene.  Sometimes, that is excusable because the action occurs so quickly you can’t beat the crowd, but it is notable when there is time and she still fails to create the scene better 

All of this said, she isn’t hopeless.  She just needs to recognize her issues and work on these things. Arnold isn’t that great either, but he is slightly better. 

To be fair, this is a problem still for Geoff Arnold at times too. He's too wordy when describing action at times and gets behind so you end up hearing the crowd reaction before he's able to complete the play. 

It's not always like that, but I do hear it from him as well even though overall I think he does a pretty good job.

Hollander is probably the best of the three but he kills me with calling the Orioles Baltimore like he's some national announcer. Local announcers should always refer to the team as the Orioles. We know where they're from.