Melanie Newman is not good on the radio.Xfinity and beyond-2024

[Matt Bennett]

4 hours ago, Ohfan67 said:

Melanie is not good on the radio. The radio broadcast quality has been trending down for years and Melanie just adds to the problem. In years past I loved to listen to weekend games on the radio while piddling around the house. Not so much these days. 

I like Geoff Arnold a lot. Easily the best radio guy we have

[Mooreisbetter27]

57 minutes ago, SteveA said:

She uses odd, non-standard phraseology.

She does not accurately describe what is happening to a radio listener.

She is completely unacceptable as a radio play by play announcer.

The only reason I don't complain more about her is that radio is no longer a major factor in bringing me the O's.   If I'm not in the car, and I'm following the O's, it's on a screen.   Radio play by play is just a small factor for my following the O's compared to the decades I was growing up.

But she is really bad at radio PBP.

Yeah. I listened for about an inning on my drive home and she did pbp and I had no idea wtf was going on half the time. Luckily, I also don’t have to do that very often. 

[Tony-OH]

1 hour ago, SteveA said:

She uses odd, non-standard phraseology.

She does not accurately describe what is happening to a radio listener.

She is completely unacceptable as a radio play by play announcer.

The only reason I don't complain more about her is that radio is no longer a major factor in bringing me the O's.   If I'm not in the car, and I'm following the O's, it's on a screen.   Radio play by play is just a small factor for my following the O's compared to the decades I was growing up.

But she is really bad at radio PBP.

Announcers are different to everyone, but I have to question a person's baseball knowledge if they enjoy her as a radio announcer. 

On top of it all, when she's doing color, she has to have a comment about EVERYTHING. Like, Geoff Arnold can be like, "It's two balls and two strikes on the batter" and she's be like, "You know what I had this morning? Two pancakes and two pieces of bacon!" 

[sevastras]

She is fine for tv. We were spoilt with Jon Miller and I harbor that loss greater than losing Mussina. 
She is not the greatest and I always hope she will get better because she seems like a decent person and she is knowledgeable. 
That said, I found the legendary Vin Scully insufferable to listen to. He had some great stories, however I don’t need a bedtime story during the game. 

[NashLumber]

6 hours ago, Philip said:

 

however, the camera work is really bad too. The camera starts from pitcher’s POV, if there’s contact, by the time the camera switches, the action is mostly over.

 

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. They had it right in the late 60s and early 70s on TV. On YouTube, any replay of the World Series from '69-'71 (the only ones I revisit due to the classic O's lineups then) have the behind the umpire view and you can see where the ball is headed immediately. The behind the pitcher cam is just lazy, and complacent, and not fully illustrative to all that's happening. It needs to be only about 1/3 of the time. If people want it that much, maybe it can be inserted into the bottom or upper right in a picture in picture format. 

Edited April 6 by NashLumber

[Roll Tide]

5 hours ago, Tony-OH said:

My blood pressure was getting high as I drove home today from work listening to her.

1. Still over describes the action so the crowd tells you what happened long before she tells you the result.

2. Still says things like, "A skyball towards 3rd base (long 2-3 pause) and it's foul."

3. Talked about Cocomelon for some reason at one point 

4. Late in the game, Gunnar gets on base with 1-2nd and no out and Adley coming up. Decides to tell a gripping story about Gunnar telling her about how his dog got into water and his underbelly froze. Then it sounded like Jingle bells when he walked. (What in the actual F does this have to do with the game action?)

Honestly, she says so many insane things now that have little to nothing to do with the game action that you wonder if someone told her to just bring up random stories and that will endear her. To who I don't know. 

Now look, this has NOTHING to do with being a woman. In fact, the Orioles can feel free to hire another one to replace her if they want, but I hear 30-40 minor league announcers that are clearly a step above her in every way.

She seems like she's probably a nice enough young lady, and I don't have any issues with her personally, but almost had to turn off the game on the way home so my blood pressure wouldn't spike.

I’m glad I’m not the only one. Honestly, I was listening to the rally and thinking that it just doesn’t sound right.

[Nite]

My mom won't listen to the game on the radio if it's her doing the play by play. She'd rather I do it off the 3D GameCast over her and I'm not that great. 

[Brian88]

When her and Garceau are together on the radio there’s no hope for having any idea what’s going on at any point in the game. 

[Frobby]

6 hours ago, NashLumber said:

This has been a pet peeve of mine for years. They had it right in the late 60s and early 70s on TV. On YouTube, any replay of the World Series from '69-'71 (the only ones I revisit due to the classic O's lineups then) have the behind the umpire view and you can see where the ball is headed immediately. The behind the pitcher cam is just lazy, and complacent, and not fully illustrative to all that's happening. It needs to be only about 1/3 of the time. If people want it that much, maybe it can be inserted into the bottom or upper right in a picture in picture format. 

I think you are in a tiny minority here.  Most people prefer the CF view.  It’s much easier to tell if a pitch is a ball or a strike and what type of pitch it was.   

Back to Melanie, she’s absolutely awful on the radio PBP.  She’s fine as the radio color person.  She’s mediocre on TV PBP, and I wouldn’t want her doing that as her everyday job, but she’s okay in limited exposure.  On pre and post game, she’s quite solid.   
 

[Tony-OH]

51 minutes ago, Frobby said:

I think you are in a tiny minority here.  Most people prefer the CF view.  It’s much easier to tell if a pitch is a ball or a strike and what type of pitch it was.   

Back to Melanie, she’s absolutely awful on the radio PBP.  She’s fine as the radio color person.  She’s mediocre on TV PBP, and I wouldn’t want her doing that as her everyday job, but she’s okay in limited exposure.  On pre and post game, she’s quite solid.   
 

She is quite good at pre and post game for sure. She just needs to be a studio host.

Thankfully my radio listening is not much so i don't have to deal with it, but I just can't take much more of:

- Sometimes not explaining when the pitch has been thrown
- Rarely giving out the count or the score
- Going off on tangents when there is actually activity happening in the game
- Unable to accurately describe what's happening or trying to use too many adjectives while describing the action so that she's midway through her "call" when the crowd's reaction tells you what has happened. This is a typical call, "So when is your niece going to get her new cocomelon doll and there's a skyball into the deep blue sky, Urrrrrrrrrius (she has to twist that R so hard to show she can) is looking into the cloudless, bird filled sky (crowd Ohhhhhhhhhh) is over and it falls in front of Hays who was unable to get to the ball and the "the batter's name" is able to take second base on a double." 

There's no direction, there's no idea whether it's a foul ball, a pop up right at him, or a one that goes towards the outfield. She also struggles to accurately describe obvious foul balls. 

"There's a skyball into the deep, blue, cloudless sky, Mountcasle looks into the blue abyss...... (two seconds of nothing. It's caught by a fan in the second row of the upper deck." Then there's incessant chatter on how the fan caught the ball.

Meanwhile, I'm just like, can we get some background on the batter or pitcher? They have access to statcast. Tell me something like, "Whoever is at bat" struggles with curveballs hitting .125 off them last year and batters hit just .111 of Danny Coulombe's curveball last year. The 0-2 by Coulombe... Swing and a miss on a nasty low down and in curveball by Coulombe. 

Now I get information, and I can visualize what just happened. 

[glenn__davis]

I have to listen to the radio a lot due to transporting my kids around, and plus I love doing yardwork with the radio on.

I am resolved to not let it bother me this year haha.  All of the criticisms in this thread are spot on and have been since she started.  She does seem like a really cool person and her colleagues seem to like her a lot.

The one pet peeve I'll add that doesn't just apply to her - a lot of our PBP guys do a very poor job calling strkeouts.  Half the time I don't know if the strikeout is looking or swinging.  You just get "Johnson sets down Smith with a low and away fastball right on the corner of the zone!"  It's not a huge deal but is it too much to tell if it was looking or swinging?

[webbrick2010]

On a positive twist I like listening to Melanie, having no clue about what she is describing, than later watching the highlights and get the Oh that's what she was describing moment.

[Going Underground]

Apple TV got rid of her pretty quickly. 

[NashLumber]

4 hours ago, Frobby said:

I think you are in a tiny minority here.  Most people prefer the CF view.  It’s much easier to tell if a pitch is a ball or a strike and what type of pitch it was.   

 

I just thought the window in a window idea would satisfy that, though. And with the batted ball, it's like you're sitting behind home plate and can see where the ball goes w/o a camera angle change that misses the action. 

[OldNewGuy]

I have the MLB app on my phone. When I hear her voice I switch over to the opposing teams radio duo. Most of the time they are quite complimentary on this years O's team and their outlook. I can usually understand what's going on in the game in real time. (Not the skanks or Rsox broadcast) This makes listening to the game more enjoyable than the Baltimore radio for me.