First of all, an important qualification. I am a big Steve Stone fan and don’t want to see him replaced, but Stoney is 78 and even though he’s under contract for several more years, that contract seems to only require he participate when it’s particularly convenient for him. Like as not, you turn on the tube and someone else is John Schriffen’s victim for the day, but feeling pity for whoever that may be isn’t the same as finding them acceptable.
We’re not asking for much. Honest.
We understand that
Vin Scully and Bob Uecker are a little too deceased to take over White Sox play-by-play even if they were somehow willing to do so, which, being sane, they would not have done. And — and here’s the serious real pity — we know that ties to Jason Benetti are ruptured for good thanks to Jerry Reinsdorf, famously pegged by The Athletic as the owner who thinks he knows everything, but whose massive ego and greed override good judgment.
First off, take John Schriffen … please
Schriffen this year has gone from ridiculously rah-rah all the time and over-screaming everything to ridiculously rah-rah and over-screaming half the time (not to mention stupidly acting like he wants to fight an opponent) and being totally blah the other half. Maybe on average he’s gotten less horrible, but the average seldom shows.
Call me a pedant if you will, but Schriffen is an Ivy League grad who has never met a redundancy he won’t endlessly repeat (“and we go to the fourth, all tied up with a score of 2-2 apiece” is a favorite, but there are also “he’s hitting really well at the plate” or “he’s pitching well on the mound today” as if there were other places such actions might take place). Maybe he watched The King and His Court as a kid and expects the occasional pitch from second base.
Not only does Schriffen get the game situation wrong too often, but he does nothing to bring out intelligent analysis from his color commentators. Stoney seems to seriously dislike him and usual Stone sub Gordon Beckham often seems to be confused by him (not that Beckham can’t get pretty confused all on his own).
This past weekend Schriffen was in Las Vegas to announce some UFC stuff, which is probably more within his competence range (“He bashed him, he bashed him again, he bashed him him again and again! Yessssss!!!”), Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that the UFC wants to keep him full-time. Maybe we could each toss in a few bucks and pay them to put him to work as an understudy for the bigger matches.
That meant Connor McKnight took over play-by-play duties for the series in Philadelphia. McKnight is no Scully or Uecker or Benetti, but he’s calmly competent and seems to remember what’s going on on the field. That’s enough to be way, waaaaay better than Schriffen.
With Stone home resting instead of making the arduous flight to Philly, sidekick duty went to Dan Plesac, who was remarkably terrible. That was surprising, because Plesac has had a long and very successful broadcasting career — much of it on the video game side, but also on MLB coverage. He’s only 62, so we can hope early-onset dementia hasn’t taken over, but it often seemed like it.
Most notably, on Sunday Plesac made note of the fact Phillies starter Aaron Nola has lost several ticks on his fastball since his banner years and relies on his curve to set up the rest of his repertoire now. Good observation, excellent information to pass along. Only he then said it again. And again. And again and again and again, half a dozen times an inning, sometimes multiple times per batter. Maybe Dan was just having a really bad day, but maybe he’d be well advised to consult his physician.
And as for the non-booth reporting … oh, my
McKnight usually does a nice solid job with sideline reporting and filler material, but because he was in the booth for the weekend, that whole job went to Brooke Fletcher, which made the cutaways useless. Not that Fletcher doesn’t know baseball well — she should, as the daughter of one major-leaguer and wife of another — but what she doesn’t know well is how to announce, and apparently there’s no one who will teach her.
So, as someone who has hired and trained dozens of announcers through the years, allow me to step in for a moment.
Brooke, you’re not being paid by the word (at least I think not, though with Reinsdorf I guess you never know). Try to remember that essentially you’ve been invited into someone’s living room or den and talk like you’re speaking with another human being, don’t just jam verbiage down their throats. As it is, you sound like a hyper four-year-old who just discovered a snake in the yard and raced to tell your mommy and daddy. No way anything you say, no matter how incisive or informative, will be remembered two minutes later with all that word-jamming, if it can even be understood in the first place.
Maybe the problem is at least partly the producer’s fault for not giving you enough time for what you have to say, but in that case you have to cut your intended speech to just the key points so you fit the time frame allowed. Believe me, as someone who has recorded hundreds of commercials that had 60 seconds of copy for a 30-second spot, I know the challenge, but you really need to do it. You sound awful.
And to whoever is in charge of such things, if Fletcher can’t learn, she needs to be replaced. Getting a female in the crew is good these days, so, Jerry, how about you shell out some bucks, however many it takes, and lure Leila Rahimi away from The Score and her other jobs. She’s smart, knows sports inside-out, has a sense of humor, can both converse and announce really well (heck, maybe you could eventually make her Schriffen’s replacement if McKnight doesn’t get the gig).
