McCarver returning to FSM booth for 2019

I wish the poll would’ve allowed us to place the analysts in order, 1-5. But you can’t have everything. At least they’re finally putting Al into situations more aligned with his skillset. He’s an almost ideal team ambassador. Personable and amiable and enthusiastic guy, but not efficient enough at verbalizing his observations for impromptu in-game analysis.

McCarver and Danny Mac have an easy and entertaining rapport that can’t be faked. Perhaps I’d get tired of them if they worked together for 100+ games a year, but I don’t think so. Edmonds and Horton are very good, while Brad Thompson needs to let the game tell the story once in a while. Two times too chatty for television.

Maybe I’m overly nostalgic, but I still feel that the Buck & Shannon radio team was the best. Well, them or Vin Scully alone. (I lived in LA for the end of Scully’s career and he was STILL great at the job. Not great for his age. Just plain great. The worst? Ed Farmer & Anyone. Farmer exudes all the joy of a man waiting for a tooth extraction while being audited. A pox on the Sox for his continued employment.)

Irrelevant sidebar. I wish the radio/TV coverage could have incorporated more of the stars from the championship 60’s and 80’s teams over the past few decades. Would have liked to hear more from Brock or Gibson or the speedsters of the Herzog years. If not regularly, at least with more frequent guest spots. But again, you can’t have everything.

I agree that Edmonds is the best of that group. I find him very insightful however I’ve never got the impression that he was that big into analytics either. He just seems to have an excellent feel for the game and great gut instincts.

I don’t have anything against McCarver though. He was on a lot of great Cardinal teams and he brings a lot of cache to the booth because of his illustrious career even if he fumbles now and then. I think it would be nice if FSM (or whover buys them) could get other famous broadcasters with ties to St. Louis to do a few games a year as their careers wind down. I’m thinking maybe Bob Costas and eventually Joe Buck.

Speaking of Costas, he recently retired from NBC. I think he is still doing some games for MLB TV. In a recent interview he said that one of the things he would like to do is broadcast a few games a year for a minor league team. Given his ties to St. Louis let’s get him in the booth in Peoria. Make it happen Brian!

Love McCarver, as he and Danny have good chemistry on the broadcasts, and Tim brings an insightful tie in to the last 50 years of Cardinal baseball. Unlike a previous poster, I do not get the sense that Tim thinks the players were better in his era, but rather he simply brings some good first-hand knowledge of those guys. We all remember the times of our glory days, and it is natural to share those thoughts and memories from time to time. The enthusiasm we show in doing so may communicate a favoritism to the past, but we are simply being nostalgic. I think it is good, as we all need to know that great times are not a product of the present, they happened before and will continue to happen into the future.

Last year we had a game in San Francisco where Timmy told some great stories about Willie Mays. My favorite was the time he introduced him to Gibby, and Gibby was wearing glasses, which he has always done from time to time. Mays said in that high, sort of squeaky voice he had, “This guy throws that hard and has to wear glasses!!” Loved it!!

Edmonds’ style is more the quiet type, who offers some good insights as well. In fact his style is similar to Hungo, a sort of quiet, melodic voice.

My all-time favorite team was Caray-Buck, but then how can you beat two Hall of Famers together. It was like an old 45rpm record where the flip side is as good as the “A” side. Buck-Shannon was great in the ’80s. It took Mike a decade or so to really hone his style. Like Brian said, Mike is not a classic PBP guy, and has always been best as the color guy. He has slipped a lot in recent years as his recall of player’s names is not good. I would prefer him to slip into the color role and let Rooney do PBP, as he is strong in that area.

Horton has really improved over the years and is enthusiastic, without crossing over too far into the cheerleader style. Thompson still needs work.

I’ll cut all these guys some slack because they all make it look much easier than it is, and certainly much better than I could do. That said, there are differences. I do think Hungo is very underrated. He makes the connection between how the game should be played and how it is played today, and has an excellent sense of what’s happening in the dugout and in the mind of the manager. Tim McCarver, on the other hand, seems occasionally stuck in the 80s, particularly with how pitchers are managed today. He is often wrong about pitch selection and batting strategy, but his stories of Bob Gibson and the great Cardinals teams more than makes up for his occasional flaws. Horton is a good play caller and an excellent analyst, but…(and this is very subjective) his tone of voice is somewhat irritating at times, with a sarcastic tone that’s difficult to listen to, especially in late innings. He should take a lesson from John Rooney (who is one of the best, if not THE best, radio broadcasters today). My advice to Ricky—try to paint a picture for a blind person, be more descriptive and less subjective.

Edmonds — excellent all-around, and brutally honest. Just what we need.

Thompson – keep tryin bro!! (Relax a little, we know your an expert, don’t need to prove it with your narrative).

All that said, it’s going to be a great year, and we need all hands on deck, including broadcasters. Keep up the great work!

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/baseball/costas-done-at-nbc-says-he-s-totally-comfortable-with/article_465b8159-7881-562f-8ee1-a7a41e80747e.html

And he reiterated something he said last summer as the Hall of Fame loomed, that after all these years the desire remains to do minor-league baseball on the radio. That’s something he never got to do as he zoomed on the fast track in his career that began at KMOX (1120 AM) in St. Louis in 1974, when at age 22 he was hired as the play-by-play announcer of the American Basketball Association’s Spirits of St. Louis.

“It’s not realistic to say you’d do a full season or even a sizable chunk of the season. A dabble here, a dabble there. Some place that is a nice city that has a nice ballpark and has a good minor-league feel to it. If it comes together, it comes together.”