Baseball on the Radio

As we have now finally come upon opening day- the most longed-for and anticipated day of my sports calendar- I can finally sit down and follow a game that matters. This is no slight against the WBC- which I thoroughly enjoyed [perhaps the subject of another post]- but nothing compares to those 162 + games that matter for the professional clubs most of us have followed all our lives. While tonight's main event falls a bit short of last year's opening series for me, I think I can sing in harmony with the chorus of all baseball fans, by proclaiming "who cares, its baseball".

The last drafts of full season fantasy baseball are going on today. People are making roster adjustments. Mark Buehrle and C.C. Sabathia are tuning up. And along with this, a large section of the media, often forgotten, and rarely appreciated are loosening up their vocal chords, fresh off their own spring training. The great baseball radio announcers around the country have finally reached their bigest days of each year.

One of the unique things I enjoy about following baseball in the far northern corner of the globe is that the best way to enjoy a game without delay and with great quality, is through the radio. This is something I totally missed out on growing up in New York and going to school in the shadow of Yankee stadium. I also missed out on the joy of radio-baseball while attending university in Dallas, a five minutes drive to the Ballpark at Arlington {Ameriquest}. I only really began to appreciate this oldest of live baseball media through a rather new invention. MLB.radio, the feature from MLB.com, which started in the past couple of years, is a phenomenal resource for a truly nostalgic baseball fan. A subscriber can choose from any game anywhere in the league, and listen to the home or away broadcasts of that game-sometimes switching between both.

Sure, you don't get to watch Alex Gonzalez turn a fantastic double play, or see just how far Adam Dunn hit that towering drive, or see Brad Lidge's reaction as he gets a game-winning home run hit off of him. These abilities are wonderful, and part of why its great to watch games on TV. But radio gives the baseball conoisseur so much more. The whole game becomes suspenseful. Every second you are hanging on the words of these two or three people in the radio booth, wondering what just happened, what will happen, and reacting to their reactions. Also, anyone who has watched tv broadcasts of baseball recently knows that the announcers in that medium, clearly having to do less, are not quite as gifted as those on the radio. Most people who watch baseball on tv shut off the volume, and I can understand why.
While not all Radio announcers are great in every market, most are superb, and as a whole I would take any five radio announcers over any five tv announcers any day.

The other joy of the radio, especially as transmitted through the internet is the great variety in style, and substance that each market's radio announcers bring to their craft. Certain radio men are consummate professionals, announcing the home and away team's achievements with the same level of excitement. Others are really huge fans of their team, rooting for them to the point that impossible to trust their judgements on everything going on in the game- though thats all part of the fun of radio. There is a difference in exactly what each broadcaster announces as well. Some are really great about announcing the statistics that matter, both situationally, and overall. Others concentrate on how a player felt before a game and what they said, and how they look out there in the field. Each are interesting and each piece of information contributes just as little to the actual result of the at-bat on which they are commenting. Finally one of the great things about listening to the variety of radio broadcasters in baseball is the unique home run calls you hear. Each of the radio announcers, attempting to put his or her own mark on baseball history and into baseball lore tries to come up with inventive and memorable calls for baseball's most exciting event. This in itself is fantastic to hear and could be made into its own weekly highlight show on ESPN radio. Every announcer seems to try to go overboard in trying to beat out the next one with how original an signature their calls might be, and most of them are just perfect for the announcing personality.

I suggest that real die-hard baseball fans give the radio a shot for listening to one of te early season games they would otherwise be watching on TV. It really is a whole 'nother ball game. Baseball on the radio has to crawl out from its exile in cars and toll booths and reenter the mainstream, and MLB.com has provided it with the perfect means of escape- MLB.radio. Give it a try.

Tomorrow we'll have a running diary of my early morning wakeup to listen to the opening day game between the Cleveland Indians and your World Champion Chicago White Sox.