Hating The Phils -- On TV, That Is

Way back in that magical year of 2008 I did a series of posts on the Outsports Jock Talk Blog in which I reviewed a game broadcast of every major league team (thanks to my subscription to the MLB Extra Innings package that year) as well as nationally televised games on ESPN, TBS and Fox. A summary of my grades for every broadcast can be found here. For the Phillies, I assigned a C-plus grade to the Comcast Sportsnet broadcast of a Phils-Nationals game. One key quote from my writeup: "It’s impossible to imagine a Phillies broadcast without Harry Kalas. It’s unfortunate that the Phillies haven’t built a better broadcast around him."

Sadly, the "impossible to imagine" became the norm in April 2009 when Harry Kalas died. Since then, Tom McCarthy has exclusively done TV play-by-play. Chris Wheeler (1st-3rd innings, 7th inning on) and Gary "Sarge" Matthews (4th-6th innings) handle the "analysis." And the broadcasts have, of course, suffered. McCarthy continues to talk and talk and talk, especially rambling during his innings with Sarge. Matthews still hasn't met a cliche he doesn't like. Wheeler, unpopular as ever, now is even getting on my nerves at times.

Listening to the Phillies on radio, with Scott Franzke and Larry Andersen, is now a much more desirable option. Even with L.A.'s blatant homerism at times, he can be very critical. I can provide an example from tonight's Phillies-Marlins game, thanks to my need to use the bathroom combined with the ability of my DVR to rewind a live show. While in the bathroom, I put on the radio to hear the game. With Florida at bat in the 3rd and a runner at first base with no outs, Logan Morrison hit a ground ball to the right side. Ryan Howard moved to his right and caught the ball. Instead of throwing it down to second, he turned and then double-clutched before throwing to first base, where pitcher Joe Blanton was unable to handle the throw. The play eventually led to two Florida runs.

Andersen's take on the play was that Howard's only play should have been to second but, because of his troubles with accurate throws at times, he was unwilling to even attempt the throw to second. When I went back to the TV and rewound the DVR to watch the play, Wheeler said that the ball was stuck in Howard's glove and that's why he went to first. Watching the replay, clearly the ball wasn't stuck in Howard's glove when he first caught it. He never tried a throw to second. I don't think he even thought about it. If he had trouble getting the ball out of his glove it was after he turned away from second base.

I don't know what it will take for the Phillies to change their broadcast crew, but someone in the organization has to realize that the quality of their TV broadcast is just getting worse and worse.