Courtesy Of Dealbreaker...

http://dealbreaker.com/2009/01/presented-without-comment-that.php

Can We Clone Gus Johnson?

I’m fed up with a lot of sports announcers. In terms of sports broadcasts, anyone who grew up in Southern California was completely spoiled. Our play-by-play announcers were all absolute legends, Chick Hearn in basketball, Vin Scully in baseball, and the underappreciated Bob Miller doing LA Kings hockey games (most of you know him as the play-by-play guy in the Mighty Ducks movies). Don’t get me wrong, there’s still guys I like today (Gus Johnson), people who really enhance the game (Gus Johnson) by getting you more excited about what you’re watching (Gus Johnson). But among announcers and colormen, there’s a lot more bad than good around right now. Here’s a worst-7 list, since everyone loves a list:

7. Joe Buck, NFL on FOX, MLB on FOX. Joe, do you even like sports? Joe Buck’s tone of voice during games is the same tone a doctor should use when explaining that you have colon cancer.

6. Mike Tirico, Monday Night Football, NBA on ESPN, PGA Tour Events. Does any announcer have less ability to focus on the game than Mike Tirico? He suffers from that same disease that Tony Kornheiser does – namely that he likes the idea of sports more than the games themselves. You can tell he likes to read about sports, argue about sports, wax poetic about sports…but he doesn’t really like to watch sports. I hate when he just drifts off into idiotic off-topic conversation, which is pretty much all the time.

5. Tim McCarver, MLB on FOX. Fire Joe Morgan has of course catalogued his follies at length. One of my favorites from them:

Tim McCarver, after a Carlos Delgado RBI double to put the Mets up 7-2 over the Yankees:"The carousel continues, here at Shea Park. It's like a park."

Problems:
1. It's called Shea Stadium.
2. What?

4. Tony Siragusa, NFL on FOX. Why does Goose stand on the field? Is it because he’s too fat to fit in the booth with Kenny Albert and Daryl Johnston? His comments are always prefaced with the fact that he’s standing on the field, invariably leading to gems like “from the field level, I can see that the Giants are really stopping the run game” or “I’m standing on the field, and let me tell you, it is VERY cold today” or my absolute favorite, “from my vantage point at the back of the end zone, I couldn’t really see what happened there, could you guys in the booth see what happened?”

3. Tommy Heinsohn, Boston Celtics. I only hear this blowhard give his “Tommy Points” and indulge his comically blatant, semi-drunken homerism on highlight clips, but even that is enough to make me detest him. Note to all Boston (and also, especially, Detroit Pistons) fans: try listening to a local Laker  broadcast one day. Hear for yourself what it’s like to hear a legitimate, professional, mostly unbiased basketball broadcast. Your broadcasts make me sick.

2. Dick Vitale, College Basketball on ESPN. It would be one thing if you conveyed genuine, uncontrollable enthusiasm (Gus Johnson). But no. You sir, you are nothing by a hype man. Don King without the hair. I beg of you, please, please, please stop talking. I’ve never in my life rooted for someone to have throat cancer. But you’re pushing me, Vitale. You’re really pushing me.

1.Thom Brenneman & Charles Davis, BCS on FOX. The BCS Championship Game was literally the single worst broadcast of a major game I have seen in my entire life. I’m prone to hyperbole, but I don’t think I’m going overboard here. There were the 40 times Charles Davis repeated “the clock stops on a first down” and Brenneman’s literal deification of Tim Tebow and never knowing the down and distance and then just a general inability to even discern what was happening on the field. “Tebow steps out of trouble to gain one yard……uhh, plus five yards for a total of six.” The absolute lowlight came when these guys got confused as to what down it was, and started screaming for Oklahoma to go for it on 4th and goal, when in reality, it was only third and goal. That humiliating video follows.



The way I see if, if you can’t get a good announcer for a game, just play music in the background. Wouldn’t it be funny if Oklahoma played USC in basketball, and whenever Oklahoma was ahead, they played like, Carrie Underwood, but whenever USC was ahead, they played Dr. Dre? This would be especially hilarious in a back-and-forth game. And if that’s too outside-the-box, maybe invite T-Pain to announce the game, provided he uses his vocoder to talk. I think that would be an improvement over the current situation.

If you’ve read this far, to cheer you up, here’s a little clip from my man, Gus Johnson.

Quick Note For Indian People

Just a quick note to all you Indian folks: I am a little weirded out by your over-the-top nationalistic “Go India!” pride over “Slumdog Millionaire”. I think it’s a wonderful movie, and I think pride in one’s ethnic heritage is a good thing. But know that when “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon” came out, that only rated as the 1,926th proudest moment in my life. One spot ahead in 1,925th place was the time Rich, Julian, Kevin and I went to Applebee’s for half-price appetizers and ordered the entire appetizer menu.

I Don't Understand The Post Office

Every now and then, some of my snail mail arrives damaged. Whenever that happens, I’m reminded of that great Seinfeld episode where Jerry starts delivering Newman’s mail, and asks Newman what to do when the package says “photos – do not bend”. Newman just cackles sarcastically, “Do Note Bend – HAHAHAHAHAHHA!”

The most egregious mail incident I have been a “victim” of occurred when Kat was sending people cards, with some candy inside. When I opened my mailbox, instead of getting a nice card with candy, I got an already-opened envelope with empty candy wrappers inside. As far as I can tell, a United States Postal Service worker went through the following steps:

1) The mailman (or lady) felt something inside the envelope
2) Mailman deduces it is probably candy
3) Mailman opens the letter, breaking federal law
4) Mailman ignores warnings about candy consumption from doctors and dentists
5) Mailman eats the candy, smiles
6) Mailman puts the wrappers back in the open envelope
7) Mailman removes card from envelope
8) Mailman throws away card
9) Mailman puts envelope with candy wrappers in my mailbox
10) Mailman laughs maniacally

It could always be worse though. It could always be anthrax.

A couple days ago, I was introduced to a different USPS phenomenon, the “WE CARE” re-mailing of damaged mail. I got this in the mail at my office:

This is the back of the envelope, assuring me that "WE CARE", although it does not specify whether they care enough not to eat my candy.


So inside is this thing from Orix, nothing important, I assume just a business Christmas card, since I see the “Happy Holidays” in the corner. You can see the damage on the bottom right part of the envelope.


So what's so special about this card that the post office would bother to re-send? I open the envelope and…

Nothing. There’s nothing in here. Is this standard practice? For the post office to mail me nothing? Is the idea to inform me that someone meant to send a Christmas card? Because if that’s the case, I really didn’t need the ripped, dirty envelope itself. It baffles me that the same post office that ate my candy and then delivered me the empty wrappers would go to this level of trouble to send me a totally useless damaged envelope with literally nothing inside.

Maybe I should work towards becoming Postmaster General. I bet there’s some stuff in there I could really whip into shape.

Sigh

It literally only took the use of the word "wife" in the last post title to bring back the "Asian Girls for Love and Marriage" banner ad on the side.

My Wife Would Like That!

In case you haven't seen this yet, courtesy of Hemanshu...