Changes to the Phillies television broadcast are leading to continued success
It’s been an incredibly bumpy ride for the Phillies broadcast team since the untimely passing of Harry Kalas in 2009. Comcast Spectacor and the team was clearly not (though understandably) prepared to replace Kalas. Tom McCarthy was getting his reps as the voice in the stands and the occasional play-by-play, but he was literally thrown behind the microphone on April 13.
In the years since the broadcast has included the lovable, yet irritating, team of Chris “Wheels” Wheeler and Gary “Sarge” Matthews. After the two were pushed out, the team favored World Series folk heroes Matt Stairs and Jamie Moyer.
Moyer, while a fan favorite on the field and an intriguing option for the broadcast, was an udder bore on television. Stairs got better in his second year and is currently the team hitting coach.
Now, human “Legoman” Ben Davis and 1993 fan favorite John Kruk control the analyst mic, with legend Mike Schmidt giving his opinions during the home weekend series.
Using grading scale identical to a scholastic grade point average (GPA), the AA readers and staff graded and ranked their favorite broadcast teams.
For the third consecutive time, the Phillies broadcast has improved on the AA grading scale, and this time is within the top half of broadcast teams. Their final grade was a 2.34 with the worst broadcast team (Chicago White Sox) getting a 1.26 and the best (San Francisco Giants) receiving a 3.15 grade.
Previous rankings were conducted with Matt Stairs and Jamie Moyer “still getting their feet wet in the booth,” when the broadcast struggled. Last season’s team with McCarthy, Davis, Stairs, Schmidt, and Murph was ranked 17th, while the staff with Moyer over Davis finished 26th.
Here’s the analysis of the Phillies television team from Awful Announcing:
This marks the third straight rankings in which the Phillies rank and score has improved, and it looks like the team finally has a standout broadcast team with Ben Davis and John Kruk sitting alongside Tom McCarthy. Philadelphia’s crew actually had the second-highest percentage of A votes of teams outside the top ten, and the third-highest vote total overall.
Just over 26% of the Phillies grades were an “A,” while 15% of voters gave the team of voices an “F.”
[“Source-ndtv”]
