Awful Announcing (a hilarious, wonderful website that is not at all awful) recently asked readers to grade each of the 30 MLB teams’ local broadcast teams. Readers could grade their team’s play-by-play and color commentary guys on a scale of A-F.
The Birds’ team of Gary Thorne, Jim Palmer, Mike Bordick, and Jim Hunter finished in third place out of the 30 MLB teams. Interestingly, though not surprisingly, there was still plenty of disagreement amongst O’s fans, as was evident in the voting compared to that of other teams:
Most popular grade: A (44% of voters)
Analysis: The Orioles were the only team to have straight distribution of grades from A to F. The excellent reviews for Thorne aren’t shocking – the man is a pro’s pro. He and Jim Palmer have years of experience in the broadcast booth and their professional work resonated with readers.
While you can certainly criticize Thorne for any variety of shortcomings – chief among them, in my view, is his being ridiculously wrong very, very often on the type/location of the pitch that was just thrown – in general, he’s extremely enjoyable to listen to. I can see where some wouldn’t appreciate his sense of humor, but personally I’m a big fan.
Palmer gets on some folks’ nerves as well, but again, to me, his stories are quite captivating and his analysis is spot-on. In addition, he’s one of the very few MASN announcers who isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade when a player is underperforming.
As for Bordick and Hunter…well, those orange pom-poms aren’t going to wave themselves now, are they?
Former Orioles broadcaster Jon Miller’s San Francisco Giants’ team took home the top spot. Hawk Harrelson of the Chicago White Sox was dead last.
What do you think of the Birds’ broadcast team?
[cardoza_wp_poll id=”20″]
Note: Our own Tom Moore graded the O’s announcers last year. See his grades here.
One Response
Jim Palmer is a bit of a no it all and needs to stop saying “and again” thats the only filler word he knows. Times have changed, baseball has changed he needs to stop acting like hes alwats right.