The largest collection of boobs ever assembled in a baseball setting didn't have anything to do with female anatomy. It was in the Atlanta Braves TV broadcaster's booth, shown on superstation TBS. Remember those guys from the 80's and 90's? Complete homers with their cutesy nicknames for every Braves player and the unbelievable ignorant arrogance from the mouthpieces of a perennial last place team (in the 80's anyway) in their toilet of a stadium. Man.
The biggest Dumb and Dumber I ever witnessed from those guys was during a Braves telecast during the last few weeks of 1993. I went over to my dad's house and we were watching the game on the tube, listening to those idiots ramble. If you remember '93, it was that great pennant race between the Giants and Braves, each team winning over 100 games and being decided on the last day of the season, and the great MVP race between players on each team.
Sometimes announcers will talk about something between pitches of interest to the fans, and they will continue the subject for several innings. Well, on this day they picked the National League MVP race as their subject. They went on for about five innings. This was Bonds' first year with SF and hands down winner of the MVP. Stats gurus later figured that Bonds' performance in'93 was one of the top ten seasons for a player in all of baseball history. Yet these clowns could only discuss which one of their home town chummy chums, Greg Maddux or Tom Glavine, should win the MVP. Inning after inning of "is it Maddux, or is it Glavine?" Stats and insight, back and forth. My dad and I were incredulous. "What about Bonds, you morons!"
For about five innings, not only didn't they discuss Bonds, they didn't even mention his name. Not once. Then, finally, at the very last minute, when their discussion was almost over, they realized their error. One of them said, "Hey, we've been talking about the MVP race for all of this time and we've only mentioned the two Braves pitchers." The other said, "Yeah, you're right. No discussion of the MVP would be complete without including [Phillies player] Lenny Dykstra!"
If Playtex made a bra to hold those boobs, it would be a world record for sure.
I enjoyed reading about the Braves' announcers because I've been getting into a bit of an argument with people about this recently. You might be surprised how many people think Skip Caray is the model of understated excellence... but I think that's because we've been spoiled by Greenwald, King, and Miller, and to a lesser extent, Flemming, Krukow, Kuiper, and Papa, all of whom are far and away better than just about anyone today save Scully.
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, Veni Vidi Vixi was on the Croix de Candlestick. Amen to extra inning night games!