Sports Broadcasters You Love/Hate

Glorified KC

This idea came to me while watching some YouTube of the Chiefs and Broncos playing in 1997.  It immediately reminded me who I couldn't stand.  However, there are many who I think are great.  Who do you love calling a game and/or cannot stand calling a game?

My Current Favorite National Play-by-Play: Kevin Harlan

Person Who I Couldn't Stand: Paul McGuire

F Me In The Brain

Dan Dickdorf was the absolute worst.
Marv Albert, horrible.

Bob Miller, hockey, was the best.  As a Kings fan I watched / heard him so much over the years.

Lot of people I like for baseball - xm radio playing all of the baseball games was fun for that.  I couldn't stand the Cardinals guy, Mike Shannon.

Football, I like Romo and Hello Friends Nantz

Sometimes the best announcer is putting the music on and the tv sound down.

Glorified KC

F Me In The Brain said:

Dan Dickdorf was the absolute worst.
Marv Albert, horrible.

Bob Miller, hockey, was the best.  As a Kings fan I watched / heard him so much over the years.

Lot of people I like for baseball - xm radio playing all of the baseball games was fun for that.  I couldn't stand the Cardinals guy, Mike Shannon.

Football, I like Romo and Hello Friends Nantz

Sometimes the best announcer is putting the music on and the tv sound down.

I put Dierdorf and McGuire in that same category.  Both very condescending "know-it-alls" when describing the game.

FiveBelow

Vin Scully followed by Harry Kalas are the GOAT in my opinion. Both called games in an unbiased way and knew how to incorporate silence without it feeling uncomfortable. I find Nantz, Torico and Michaels to be easy on the ears as well. Ken Harrelson always annoyed me because he had a tendency to pout when the opposing team had success. I think baseball is the toughest to call because there is so much down time, for other sports I don’t place as much importance on the announcer as there is pretty much non stop action to distract the viewer. I will say that I am totally cool with not hearing Madden babble on every week.

gimmesometruth27

i always hated jerry glanville, and tim mccarver. then mccarver ended up on my local cardinal baseball broadcasts so i could not watch or listen to the cardinals for a while.

i grew up on jack buck, so in my 5 year old memory nobody will ever compare to him.

markymark550

Love Gus Johnson. I miss him calling NCAA Tournament games. Growing up an Atlanta Braves fan, I always enjoyed listening to Skip Caray call games. This is more local for me, but I really like Dave Friedman, who does the play-by-play for Winthrop University.

I dislike most of the ones that get too sanctimonious calling games. Joe Buck really comes to mind for that. While I liked Skip, I don't much care for Chip Caray that much.

Johnny Abruzzo

I grew up listening to Harry Kalas & Richie Ashburn - talk about spoiled!

Unpopular opinion but I'm a Joe Buck fan. I'll try to just keep it positive.

Ledbetterman10

You know who I couldn't stand? And I know everyone else seems to love him, but I thought Pat Summerall was terrible. Just monotone and boring and he sucked the life out of some of those 90's Cowboys and Niners games. So many people look back fondly on him and Madden, but I just look back fondly on Madden, and much preferred when Pat retired and Madden was with Michaels.

People give Joe Buck a hard time? Listen to Summerall on a game-winning Super Bowl FG as time expires....

https://youtu.be/TbhFKq5Gl_s

Or these calls on the Packers' long TDs in SB31..

https://youtu.be/Z7-Rk4VmwF0

Apparently he used to be a part of the Masters broadcast. Makes sense, perfect voice and enthusiasm for golf. Football...not so much. 

Another Summerallism that I found annoying was when they made a top 100 players list in the mid-2000's, he was one of the voters on the panel. which is fine, he's been around forever. But the voters were to rate each player on a scale of 1-10, and Summerall explained that he didn't give any player a 10, because nobody deserves a 10. Yeah, so Pat Summerall, a field goal kicker that made 47% of his kicks, won't give Jim Brown or Jerry Rice a 10 out of 10. Come on...

MayDay10

Ill post some of my controversial ones


I always hated John Madden.  His whole 'tough guy' shtick and describing players snot in the dirt and growling and eating turkey legs and all that was annoying.  He was also firmly team-NFC, and would always seem to favor NFC teams and I was an AFC fan.  I found him and Summerall to be a dull combo.

I never liked Doc Emrick in hockey.  His voice grates on me and he has annoying phrases used 1000 times a game "Drive!" 

I like Joe Buck.  It seems it is cool to hate him.


OK,
Vin Skully.  Amazing.  
Bob Cole - best hockey announcer
Brad Musburger was amazing
Kirk Herbstreit is an amazing color guy

HATED Tim McCarver.
I also hate Pierre McGuire for NHL
Pretty much the entire NBC Hockey team sucks from the booth to the studio.  



I was watching a Tigers broadcast the other day.  Holy fuck are those the most boring announcers I have ever heard.  They sound like they dont want to be there.  
Been watching the Mariners and their local guys are very good.

eeriepadave

Johnny Abruzzo said:

I grew up listening to Harry Kalas & Richie Ashburn - talk about spoiled!

Unpopular opinion but I'm a Joe Buck fan. I'll try to just keep it positive.

First two that popped into my head. Also Merrill Reese for the Eagles and Gene Hart for the Flyers. Still have this bobblehead from a game that I went to about 10 years or so ago

Johnny Abruzzo

MayDay10 said:

Ill post some of my controversial ones


I always hated John Madden.  His whole 'tough guy' shtick and describing players snot in the dirt and growling and eating turkey legs and all that was annoying.  He was also firmly team-NFC, and would always seem to favor NFC teams and I was an AFC fan.  I found him and Summerall to be a dull combo.

I never liked Doc Emrick in hockey.  His voice grates on me and he has annoying phrases used 1000 times a game "Drive!" 

I like Joe Buck.  It seems it is cool to hate him.


OK,
Vin Skully.  Amazing.  
Bob Cole - best hockey announcer
Brad Musburger was amazing
Kirk Herbstreit is an amazing color guy

HATED Tim McCarver.
I also hate Pierre McGuire for NHL
Pretty much the entire NBC Hockey team sucks from the booth to the studio.  



I was watching a Tigers broadcast the other day.  Holy fuck are those the most boring announcers I have ever heard.  They sound like they dont want to be there.  
Been watching the Mariners and their local guys are very good.

I liked Madden but otherwise I agree with a lot of what you say here. Maybe the NFC bias agreed with me - of course the NFC teams just dominated back then. A whole buncha blowout Super Bowls.

eeriepadave

MayDay10 said:

OK,
Vin Skully.  Amazing.  
Bob Cole - best hockey announcer
Brad Musburger was amazing
Kirk Herbstreit is an amazing color guy

Who's Brad Musburger? or were you thinking of Brent Musburger?

Glorified KC

A couple of guys who I really enjoyed on ESPN, especially in the 90's were Gary Thorne calling NHL and Mike Patrick calling NFL or NCAA basketball.  Gary Thorne was gold calling a hockey game.

tbergs

gimmesometruth27 said:

i always hated jerry glanville, and tim mccarver. then mccarver ended up on my local cardinal baseball broadcasts so i could not watch or listen to the cardinals for a while.

i grew up on jack buck, so in my 5 year old memory nobody will ever compare to him.

Buck is forever ingrained in my mind from his excellent calling of my Twins '91 WS victory. I've erased McCarver from my memory for that one.

tbergs

Glorified KC said:

This idea came to me while watching some YouTube of the Chiefs and Broncos playing in 1997.  It immediately reminded me who I couldn't stand.  However, there are many who I think are great.  Who do you love calling a game and/or cannot stand calling a game?

My Current Favorite National Play-by-Play: Kevin Harlan

Person Who I Couldn't Stand: Paul McGuire

Harlan has always been great. It was hard to hear him move on from being the T-wolves original announcer. The voice of my youth for all things MN b-ball.

Jason P

Bob Ueker is still doing Brewers games at the age of 87.  Seems like his duties are scaled back.  If you have SiruisXM, remember to tune into a Brewers game.  Great baseball voice.

Glorified KC

tbergs said:

Glorified KC said:

This idea came to me while watching some YouTube of the Chiefs and Broncos playing in 1997.  It immediately reminded me who I couldn't stand.  However, there are many who I think are great.  Who do you love calling a game and/or cannot stand calling a game?

My Current Favorite National Play-by-Play: Kevin Harlan

Person Who I Couldn't Stand: Paul McGuire

Harlan has always been great. It was hard to hear him move on from being the T-wolves original announcer. The voice of my youth for all things MN b-ball.

Harlan was the voice of the Chiefs when I was old enough to start appreciating sports.  He left Chiefs Radio after the 1993 season and I remember his line was always “Oh baby what a play!”

markymark550

Jason P said:

Bob Ueker is still doing Brewers games at the age of 87.  Seems like his duties are scaled back.  If you have SiruisXM, remember to tune into a Brewers game.  Great baseball voice.

Johnny Abruzzo

Glorified KC said:

A couple of guys who I really enjoyed on ESPN, especially in the 90's were Gary Thorne calling NHL and Mike Patrick calling NFL or NCAA basketball.  Gary Thorne was gold calling a hockey game.

Thorne has the best hockey announcer voice and goal call but he is a terrible announcer - most of the time he's not paying any attention to the game and he's off having some random conversation about the mainstream NHL guys who probably aren't even involved in the game he's announcing. He was good for a while but his last few seasons he was just awful.