Baseball

I watched some of the Yankees/Red Sox series. I really didn't start watching until the Red Sox were winning games. Turning the tv to a 10 run Yankee lead forced me to switch to the not much closer FSU UVA football game. Regardless of what the outcome of the World Series is, I have developed a newfound appreciation for Joe Buck. I used to say Joe Buck makes Skip Caray look like Jack Buck, but no more. Teaming him w/ Troy Aikman on the Fox NFL broadcast team was the main reason for my dislike. Aikman is a terrible commentator. The ghost of Don Meredith couldn't save his one too many concussions babble. Still, Joe Buck sucks up to him while letting the insightful Cris Collinsworth absorb the brunt of the sarcasm. However, watching baseball where he's teamed w/ Tim McCarver and Al Leiter brings out a different side. First, Joe Buck probably knows more about baseball than he does football. If your job is to call the action and you get 162 chances a year versus 16, you'll probably learn a lot more w/ the extra experience. He does a good job w/ the play by play, but he's as good a color commentator as the other 2 clowns in the booth. Leiter did a good job showing what a circle change up was. He demonstrated the grip and explained the importance of maintaing the same arm speed as your fastball. That's good stuff. Too bad his comments on the actual game aren't anything more than Sunday paper statistics ("this guy hit 18 home runs this year" how many against this pitcher? how many in this ballpark? how many w/ runners on base to take a lead?)Even better, McCarver points out that bringing Pedro Martinez into game 7 is a bad idea. Hmm, I thought all the Boston fans had forgotten about last year's series w/ the Yanks. If I weren't so lazy I'd look up a link to the Ben Stiller Show sketch Skank, the sock puppet w/ a catch phrase ("Shut your stinking trap!") and link McCarver's name to it. Back to Joe Buck. He provides the commentary these other guys don't deliver. Talking about how Pedro would throw 2 days after a start anyway(yeah, but not in Yankee stadium in game 7 in the 6th inning w/ nobody else warming up) is real baseball commentary. The stuff you should be getting from the former atheletes whose qualifications consist of these types of inside observations. Joe Buck has been around the sport so long that this kind of stuff is second nature to him. So I say Fox should keep Joe Buck for baseball and keep the guy he has the most chemistry w/ (Leon). And just get rid of him on football. Then I'll have nothing but nice things to say about him.