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Boston broadcast blunders
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Watching national sports broadcasts can be extremely painful. Guys like Joe Morgan, Tim McCarver, Cris Collinsworth, Emmit Smith, and Randy Cross are downright brutal to listen to most of the time. In Boston we have been blessed with some great local broadcasters and personalities.
Jerry Remy and Don Orsillo are a tremendous broadcast team on NESN. As the color man Remy does not bleed to much Red Sox in his commentating, but just enough to satisfy the viewers in the northeast. In the studio for pregame and postgame analysis Tom Caron is a likable anchorman who guides the shows perfectly. Dennis Eckersley, Jim Rice, Lou Merloni, and Dave McCarty have their shortcomings, but overall they deliver adequate analysis of the games.
Then there's Heidi Watney and well...she's Heidi Watney...enough said.
On WEEI and WRKO, Joe Castiglione is a legend and Dave O'Brien has been an excellent addition since coming over from Baltimore.
On Comcast SportsNet (or whatever the network name du jour is) Mike Gorman is flawless in his game calling. Tommy Heinsohn's color commentating role has been slashed at the network, but his over-the-top homerism still makes you feel like you are sitting on the couch next to your old man watching the game. Although he lacks a real colorful personality, Donny Marshall is very knowledgeable and well spoken and seems to mesh well with the veteran Gorman.
With all those praises aside, there are some real glaring issues with Boston's local broadcasts.
Staying with the Celtics broadcasts, two questions arise:
1. Why is Greg Dickerson the DCU sideline guy?
2. Why is Michael Felger hosting the pregame and postgame shows?
I have never met anyone who likes either of these guys. Dickerson adds absolutely zero insight into the game. Like many sideline reporters in any sport, his uselessness is highlighted by him being completely annoying. It's understood why the majority of sideline reporters are attractive women -- it helps appease the male viewers. So why is Greg Dickerson there again?
As for Dan Shaughnessy Jr., Michael Felger, his role in Boston's media world is to anger readers and listeners with his commentating. If Dale Arnold is Elijah Wood in "The Good Son," then Michael Felger is Macaulay Culkin. This is good to stir up controversy on WEEI or on blog sites but not for pre and post game analysis. The studio anchor needs to be a guy like Tom Caron or Dale Arnold. The color is supposed to come from Tommy Heinsohn or Donny Marshall not from the anchor. Why do you think Fox NFL Sunday has that dud Curt Menefee hosting the show? The answer is because he is a neutral backdrop to Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, and Michael Strahan. Comcast SportsNet needs to reassess their game plan for the Celtics otherwise Wyc Grousbeck and company should start their own network.
The other issue involves are beloved 6-3 New England Patriots. This past Sunday I was in the car traveling back from Philadelphia and was forced to listen to the Patriots-Bills game on the radio for the most part. Ordinarily the Patriots are appointment television for me, since they only play once a week and I usually plan my Sundays around their schedule. Listening to Gil Santos and former Boston Patriot, Gino Cappelletti, I noticed two things:
1. Gil Santos is an excellent play-by-man and I wish he would call the Pats games on television
2. Gino Cappelletti sounds old
Cappelletti seems to be a likable guy who has a successful track record. He is in the Patriots Hall of Fame and was the 1964 AFL MVP. Further, he has 28 years of broadcasting experience and has been teamed up with Santos since 1991. Track record aside, he gets lost in the broadcasts and ends up confusing the listener. Towards the end of this past Sunday's game, it really seemed as though the seventy four year old Cappelletti needed a nap. As I mentioned before, Tommy Heinsohn doing the color commentating for the Celtics makes you feel like your old man is calling the game from the couch, at times Cappelletti makes you feel like your grandfather is calling it from his bed at nine at night. Santos calls the game with so much energy and clarity in his voice, then there is Cappelletti who chimes in sounding like he's some old guy asking for directions to the doctor's office.
If the Patriots were broadcast locally on television, Cappelletti may not be bad as a third man in the booth, similar to what Cousy did with the Celtics. However, for radio broadcasts there has to be a concise, clear call of the game and equally concise commentating on the game, which Cappelletti cannot deliver. Seeing that the NFL is appointment television and the majority of fans are like myself, planning their Sundays around their team's schedule, the radio broadcast is not so important, so maybe this is not an issue worth looking into. The Patriots certainly don't feel like WBCN is all that important, after all the station only has one sign in the stadium. WEEI, who hosts "Patriots Friday" and "Patriots Monday," who's weekly guests include Bill Belichick, Tom Brady (Matt Cassel this year), Tedy Bruschi, and Richard Seymour, have way more presence at Gillette then WBCN. This makes one wonder why WBCN is even involved.
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