Since the advent of sports broadcasting, there have been a number of professional broadcasters that have influenced our thoughts, our beliefs, and our feelings about our favorite teams and favorite players. I’ve always been interested in the world of sports broadcasting; anyone who knows me realizes this. So I decided to come up with a list of broadcasters that have affected me and my enjoyment of sports in some way, both positively and negatively. Some of these people will be obscure to the reader while others will be well known. The list will be fairly random and will contain my thoughts on each person. I’ll probably have to break this up into several parts because I keep thinking of more people to write about. Also, please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email at bdlomax@yahoo.com to give me some feedback on the list.
Dick Enberg – I have never been a Dick Enberg fan and that goes back to 1979. That was the year that NBC first started providing live coverage of the Men’s Singles Final at Wimbledon (Breakfast at Wimbledon). It was also Enberg’s first tennis assignment, and it was glaringly obvious even to an 11 year old that he was clueless. His lack of knowledge on the sport butchered the broadcast and soured my opinion of him for years to come. During the 80’s, I felt he was a good play-by-play guy for football, but I think he’s lost his fastball in the last few years. His sense of humor is completely out of touch with today’s viewer and pairing him with Dan Dierdorf is a mistake as Dierdorf totally buys into the corny humor that Enberg provides. Much to my chagrin, in the last year, Enberg has worked a deal with CBS and ESPN that allows him to work the French Open, Wimbledon and the Australian Open for ESPN2. Ugh!
Fred Cusick – Growing up as a kid in New England in the 70’s meant watching the Bruins on Channel 38. For as much as the Red Sox own the region now, the Bruins owned it back then and Fred Cusick was the team’s top notch television play-by-play man (radio play-by-play was handled by Bob Wilson who was an awesome talent in his own right). Cusick was always on top of the play and rarely made mistakes in a sport that has to be one of the most difficult to describe because of the quick pace. Cusick is probably in my top 3 of hockey broadcasters.
Toby Charles – Who? If you’re not a soccer fan from way back, you may not know who this guy is, but I was introduced to his work via a television show that was broadcast on PBS called Soccer Made in Germany. The show was on weekly and often showed top flight games from the German Bundesliga. Other weeks, he presented some real gems like World Cup Qualifiers from Europe, international tournaments and in 1982, a daily show with World Cup matches from Spain. This show made me a soccer fan, and in particular the games from the 1980 Gold Cup in Uruguay. I was so captivated with the tournament that I wanted to move to Uruguay. Also, 1982 was my first World Cup and it was described to me through the eyes of Toby Charles. In many ways, that has made the 1982 World Cup my favorite of them all.
Howard Cosell – Ah Howard! For those that remember him, Howard was one of those individuals that you either loved or hated. For me, I flip-flopped. I started out hating him and being disgusted with 95% of what he said until I was about12. Then I read his autobiography Cosell, and I was turned. I began to appreciate his role in the evolution of sports broadcasting and of sport itself. I felt like I got to know the man and that helped me appreciate his style and his role. Now, I crave to hear his description of events on the field, yet realizing there will never be another like him. I also love his cameos in Woody Allen films.
Bob Costas – When Bob Costas first started working for NBC, I thought he was great. He was young, smart and I identified with his sense of humor. If I could have molded myself into a broadcaster back then, he would have been my model. While I was in college, his late night show Later was must watch television for me and I think it showed a level of depth that helped him move beyond the sports label. Today, he’s still one of the top talents around, but I’ve lost my connection with him. More often than not these days, his humor lands in a thud with me rather than in laughter. I find it difficult to listen to him doing baseball play-by-play now because of multiple inane references that I doubt hardly anyone cares about. Even though I have grown out of Bob Costas, I will always have positive memories of him from the 80’s.
Chris Berman – Here’s another guy that I have mixed feelings about. When we first got cable in our house in 1981, Chris Berman was ESPN. His SportsCenter shows with Tom Mees in those days were some of the best. In my opinion, they invented the “Big Show” long before Dan Patrick and Keith Olbermann came along and used the title. I think Berman and ESPN are like mirrors of each other. In the early days, ESPN represented what was great about the new frontier of cable television. It often looked like a fly-by-night operation and Berman was the flagship talent. Nowadays, ESPN is a behemoth and often represents what is wrong with sports today. As ESPN is a bloated version of its roots, so is Berman. With a heavier set frame and a more gravelly voice, Berman is still quite good in the studio (NFL Primetime), but is completely unwatchable when doing baseball play-by-play. Like a lot of the people at ESPN, his job has made him a personality and sometimes I think he uses that too much.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Woa - names from the past!
Dick Enberg - reminds me of Little House on the Prairie. I mean, what happened to Merlin Olsen??? His patented "oh my" is too effected. I suspect the director is telling him "you need three more 'oh mys' Dickie. Good announcer.
Bob Costas - too glib for my taste, though knowledgeable. I can't forgive him, however, for naming several Portuguese navigators as though they were Spanish during the opening ceremonies of the Barcelona Olympics. Fire the bastard!
Fred Cusick - though a fanatical Bruins fan at the time, I never loved Cusick; never minded him either. He and Johnny Pierson were sort of like the guys you invited to your house for hockey and dinner. One thing I do remember about him is that he did not really know that much about what else was going on in the league. Bob Wilson - now you're talking!!!
Toby Charles - a classic. A trickster too. HE would overlay play by play on a tape, which meant he already knew the outcome and would always make himself sound like a genius. YOu could tell this because the sound was seamless, even while they spliced the tape, because those German broadcasts were truncated to an hour.
Chris Berman - indeed, too many traveling meals and a raspy voice. He does know his staff, which does compensate for his now taken-for-granted humor. He did, however, emblemize the cable revolution, and, regardless of medium, gave me a lot of laughs. "rumbing-bumbling-stumbling" and "tha Raidahs" still makes me laugh.
Nice piece on some really special guys. So many memories about the guys you have listed.
Toby Charles was always a favorite of mine. His cadence and exaggerated British pronunciation of the German names and teams was so unique and memorable that I can recite them to this day. "Ruminegga", "Schumaka" and "Klaus Fisha" and Borussia Muenchengladbach just roll off the tongue.
I have never been a big fan of Bob Costas. He reminds me too much of Michael J. Fox in his Alex P. Keaton character. He is knowledgable but a little to pompous for me.
I really fell for Chris Berman and his schtick in the late-80's. The "back-back-back" rant on Sports Center started a trend of talking-heads with a signature catch-phrase. Then when he started the NFL show on ESPN he took it all a step further with the musical references. His rapport and friendship with Tom Jackson is enjoyable to watch, especially with so many racial stereotyping on both sides these days. I don't find him as funny as I used to but I do like him. He is always prepared. My only gripe was his incesant promoting of the "circle the wagons" Buffalo Bills. Being a Bengals fan, I got tired of that rally cry during the late 80's and early 90's.
Living in Cincinnati, I have been fortunate to listen to the guy that I feel is the best broadcaster ever. His name is Marty Brennaman and has done the Reds games since 1973. His description of the scene and his ability to convey the drama of the moment is near perfection. He is rarely without word and is seamless with his delivery. While he has gained a reputation of being overly critical in his later years, there is no finer sound than hearing he yell, "and this one belongs to the Reds...."
Ok you are obviously a bit too young to remember when Fred Cusick was an *objective* hockey announcer and not a chronically biased towards the Bruins announcer.
Fred was the regular announcer on CBS's saturday afternoon NHL broadcasts from 1957-60. He was at his most superb and most knowledgeable at that point in his career. And he was unencumbered by a "color man" such as Derek (yuck!) Sanderson, there was only one announcer in those days.
Actually the CBS broadcasts began in 1956 and the announcer was Bud Palmer("the fastest game on ice"), who was even better than Fred.
I'm not especially anti-Bruins although I have been a loyal Hab fan all my life (talk about being behind enemy lines...). It's just that I prefer my announcers to be a bit more neutral in addition to knowledgeable. Derek Sanderson was a travesty, an embarassment if you ask me.
Bob Wilson?? Average at best, not what I would call a hockey announcer.
Yes, I am too young to remember Cusick doing national games. However, the approach of a broadcaster doing a national broadcast is different than doing one for a specific team. What you call bias, is only natural and often expected from the home team announcers. Name a hockey announcer that covers one team who isn't biased for that team.
I guess we'll have to disagree on Bob Wilson. I thought he was very good and it became more obvious how good he was when Bob Neumeier began calling the games.
BTW, I'm also a Habs fan so I'm behind enemy lines on a couple of fronts. Nice to know I'm not the only one.
Well he is my response a few months late, lol. Sorry about that.
Well there hometeam broadcasters and then there are "homies" like Sanderson was. And he wasn't the least professional as well. You'd have thought that he had only played for the Bruins.
Now if you could dig listening to a Habs game in French then Rene Lecavalier was the best. That's when I thought that hockey should be played in French.
Post a Comment