After what had been a long and dreary offseason, with far too little to celebrate, O’s fans have had plenty to get excited about lately. A little over a week ago, we learned that Ubaldo Jimenez was coming to town to help anchor the rotation. Then on Saturday, Nelson Cruz agreed on a relatively cheap one-year deal to give the Birds one of the most formidable lineups in baseball.
Don’t unbuckle your seatbelts yet though, Birdland, as this ride is seemingly still not over. We may have just gotten one of the best pieces of news all offseason.
No, it’s not another big-name signing.
No, Manny Machado hasn’t announced that he’ll be 100% by Opening Day.
And no, Dylan Bundy isn’t months ahead of schedule following Tommy John Surgery.
While those things would all be O-mazing to hear, this concerns something we DON’T have to hear any more – and that’s the voice of F.P. Santangelo!
That’s right, O’s-Nationals games will no longer use a combined broadcast booth of Baltimore/Washington play-by-play/commentary teams.
Pete Kerzel of MASN has more:
MASN is eliminating the combined broadcast booth featuring talent from both the Nationals and Orioles on-air teams. Instead, each team will get its own broadcast with its own broadcasters.
For Nationals fans, that means play-by-play voice Bob Carpenter and analyst F.P. Santangelo calling the action. For Orioles fans, it’ll be the team of Gary Thorne on play-by-play and Mike Bordick on color commentary. It doesn’t matter whether the game is emanating from South Capitol Street or West Camden Street – there will be two distinct broadcast teams, each calling its own team’s action.
Since the 2007 edition of the Battle of the Beltways,, MASN had utilized a combined broadcast team for interleague games featuring its two marquee teams. It was, in all senses of the words, an all-star lineup of talent.
YES, YES, YES, YES! (not to be confused with the YES Network)
I don’t know about you, but listening to those combined booths was like nails on a chalkboard to me. Bob Carpenter I could take or leave, but Santangelo is, in my opinion, AWFUL. Every Nationals player is the next Mickey Mantle with that guy.
Now, I would absolutely understand – and expect – Washington fans to feel the same way. I felt for those Gnats fans who had to listen to Jim Hunter or Rick Dempsey be homerific for the Orioles all those years. Hell, they can even be grating to me sometimes, and I’m as “orange kool-aid” as they come.
But here’s the deal – they’re at least talking about MY team. I didn’t care to hear Santangelo going on and on about how great the Gnats players are. I get annoyed when Gary Thorne gets too excited for an opponent’s big hit, and unlike Santangelo, he’s not even openly rooting for the other guy, he’s just genuinely enthused. I despise the Washington baseball team, which made it even worse.
For years I wondered if MASN was simply doing this as a way to save money – one set of cameras, one set of announcers instead of two – while we viewers were sold on it as being some sort of “gift” to us.
Kerzel even touched on some of the supposed benefits:
In the past, Hall of Famers Jim Palmer and Don Sutton would wax poetic on the intricacies of pitching, giving fans of both teams the benefit of the respective color analysts’ vast experience. Carpenter might start the game and be relieved by Orioles counterpart Jim Hunter, or vice versa. More recently, former major league infielders Santangelo and Bordick tossed good-natured barbs.
Blech. No thank you.
Some of you may have enjoyed it (I know our own Andrew Stetka will disagree with me), but it was 100% not my cup of tea.
Whatever the reason for the change – and whatever the REAL reason for doing it the way they did since 2007 – I’m just happy to hear that this silly experiment is over.
Thank you, MASN!
