Idiots Write About Sports

Approximate time of first pitch in season opener: 1:07 PM

Approximate time of first use of the phrase “stop the bleeding” by local broadcasters: 1:23 PM

Another team record broken by your San Diego Padres!

When I went to UCSD the Padres were in the throes of Andy Benes mania.

Times haven't changed so much....

Hey, Steve-O, Jerry Coleman's still the (hang a) star (on that one) of San Diego Padres broadcasting, right?

Kinda sorta. Jerry's about 106 years old now, and his advanced years have made him almost useless as a broadcaster. When he's not saying something inherently incorrect, he's getting overexcited and shouting helpful things like, "What do you know about that?!" This in lieu of telling us what "that" actually was.

But Jerry's an institution. You can't just put the man behind "Oh-ho, Doctor!" out to pasture.

So instead they have a three man announcing booth with Jerry, Ted Leitner, and newcomer Tim Flannery. Jerry does about three innings total, so that he can hang stars and call the doctor, but not actually ruin the broadcast. A pretty Solomon-esque solution, I think.

Incidentally, closer-for-the-ages Trevor Hoffman gave up four runs in the ninth to lose the game for the Padres. The more things change, the more they stay the same, indeed...

God, I love Ted Leitner.

How's THAT... for a HOCKEY GAME?

No one wants to push Jerry out the door, so we get a couple more years of his, um, unique style. Ted's pretty good, but Flannery always seems to rub me the wrong way (in the booth)

We'll see how it goes.

However, last year I got to listen to a Giants game on the radio on a Sunday afternoon, and, you know? They made Jerry sound _good_. Scary.

Jon Miller-less Giants games are definitely not an example of putting their best foot forward. Especially if Krukow and Kuiper are on the TV broadcast. At that point you're left with second-year man Dave Fleming and, um, I think maybe nothing else.

Yeah, Flannery has a voice for television, and I've not been too happy with his work in the past. Now that he's getting a little more comfortable at the mic, though, I'm starting to appreciate his insights.

It's not often that you get a guy in the booth that was on the coaching staff during the tenure of the current manager. He knows a lot about what Bochy's thinking at any given moment, and that's a valuable thing indeed.

Also, Flannery understands the modern game well, having been a player not too far in the distant past. That's in contrast to Jerry, who was last on the field in the days when fans could go to the concession stand and order a raspberry phosphate and an ice cream sundae in a bowler hat, and you could still park your bicycle with the huge front wheel and tiny rear one at the stadium for free.

Ted, on the other hand, though a very good play-by-play man, irritates the hell out of me. I don't know how he manages to get more bloated, tan, and pompous every year. He should have hit critical mass a decade ago.

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