Tom McCarthy Follies

[robbo]

As Cesar Hernandez comes to bat in the bottom of the 7th (and this is word for word).

TM: "I think with his on base percentage...I think he could be a .300 hitter."

Ben Davis tries to extract the possibly coherent thought at the core of this comment, to no avail.

TM: "...because of his ability to walk and take pitches."

When Tom was first given play-by-play duties years ago, I used to keep a running list of gems like this and sometimes share them here. It used to be five times a night, but he's improved over the years. Now it's down to two a night.

It's this guy's job to communicate! He's had this job for years, and will most likely continue in that job for years, if not decades. He's raising an entire generation of Phillies fans that will know less about baseball for having listened to him. And seemingly his employers and most fans don't realize that this is happening. It drives me nuts.

[Squire]

He's legitimately terrible and makes me want to turn off the game. I know its the Phillies organization's mantra that "anybody after Harry would have been disliked" but this guy is legit not good

[julio]

He's legitimately terrible and makes me want to turn off the game. I know its the Phillies organization's mantra that "anybody after Harry would have been disliked" but this guy is legit not good

That's their belief, but.... How much "dislike" is there among fans for Scott Franzke? Now I'll grant you, Scott's only on radio. But radio listeners probably skew older than the average fan (teenager: "What's a radio?"); radio listeners probably represent hard-core fans (who else is going to listen to Phils broadcasts on radio all these years?). I would argue that radio listeners are more familiar with Harry (and Whitey) than the typical current TV watching fan... and as a group, we don't dislike Scott Franzke - we just wish he could do TV and radio at the same time!

Scott Graham, IMHO, was the post-Harry "whipping boy" - disliked by many fans because he wasn't Harry, and yet tried to project a distinctive personality (and was undercut by Wheels in internal politics, as well). McCarthy became something of an anti-Graham - as in, no particular personality, just bland. Heck, he served to make Wheels seem less than atrocious, which wasn't easy.

Just to throw out some related comments: I'm OK with Ben Davis. Decent voice, doesn't seem to try to be a know-it-all (Wheels). I think he can grow into the job. Kruk, I'm ambivalent. He can be funny, but I think like most "character actors," he's best with limited exposure. Murphy isn't bad at play-by-play (when he's used there), but as far as I'm concerned, they can just scrap the "sideline reporter" stuff - it's apparently there to placate the casual fans who want "entertainment," as opposed to baseball, on TV.

[Lawman]

Franzke and LA/Kevins are great. I'm ok with Jim Jackson as well. Living in NY, and getting the radio broadcasts via MLB-At-Bat, I'm forced to radio only and have no complaints.

[robbo]

I agree with most of the sentiment on the rest of the broadcast team. I enjoy Scott Franzke and LA. Sometimes I turn down the sound on the TV and turn on the radio...but it's a hassle when I flip channels so I don't do that as often as I could.

I liked Scott Graham a lot. I still enjoy it when he turns up on NFL Films or football or basketball games here and there. I'm equally dismayed when McCarthy turns up outside his primary gig, although he's not as bad at other sports. I think it's all the quiet time within a baseball game that leads to his downfall. He just can't stop talking!

I like Kruk doing color. He points out the little things. For example, he picked up last week that the umpire hadn't indicated a strike after the batter swung at a wild pitch. The scoreboard even registered the strike - it was so obvious. The Phils didn't know to appeal until after the next pitch when the scoreboard was corrected, at which point it was too late. I'm fine with Ben Davis, too.

[JoeBas]

I'm not a fan of Jim Jackson for Phillies broadcasts - I think he's GREAT for the Flyers, but his style of announcing is NOT suited for the slower pace of Baseball, particularly on the radio.

"Swing and a drive DEEP TO LEFT, Herrera's back, STILL going back, he leaps and... did he? I think he did! It's.... ". WHAT??? CATCH IT, RUN INTO THE WALL, STOP AND MAKE A SANDWICH, SPIT IT OUT MAN!

[teabag259]

I thought I was the only one who thinks McCarthy is beyond awful. My Dad and I have ripped on him for years. I've often wondered what Kruk must actually think about him.

[julio]

Franzke and LA/Kevins are great.

Well, Stocker has been pretty OK, IMHO. The other two Kevins... I'm not convinced.

[zambonir]

I find Ben a little dull, plus I'm just not that interested in his war stories. Kruk actually makes me like McCarthy a little better, they just seem to have more chemistry. Doesn't make McCarthy better at the gig but the energy level rises.

It appears MLB.TV has gotten rid of the ability to overlay the radio onto the TV. I didn't use it often but I'll be disappointed if so. Still, I've always thought the better announcer should be on the radio.

Heard Scott Graham calling the Villanova game last weekend.

Did McCarthy actually sign a new long-term contract? He'd signed one in 2013 that expired last year, pre-dating the current TV deal and Comcast's takeover of the hiring process. And that whole operation (mainly NBC Sports Philly) remains very much in flux. Dave Buck has said the whole three Kevins thing won't be permanent either.

[andyb]

My annoyance with MLB.TV this year is that buffering on the Tivo app is just awful. Seems to be OK on the laptop online but they keep trying to make the Tivo app fancier with multiple concurrent video windows to the point of making it stream too much data at once I suspect.

[julio]

It appears MLB.TV has gotten rid of the ability to overlay the radio onto the TV. I didn't use it often but I'll be disappointed if so. Still, I've always thought the better announcer should be on the radio.

Yeah. Shame. It's possible it will be back, if people complain. They have the audio (you can listen instead of watching). MLBAM feels compelled to "improve" the web site each season, but perhaps they could be persuaded that getting rid of features doesn't constitute "improvement."

On the other hand... the audio was not consistently in sync with the video (buffering being what it is), so it's possible they decided that the combination created more problems than it solved. They may also have had complaints about the lack of sync - people who don't understand about packet-switched data buffering and just expected it to "work" like magic sometimes complain loudly about things they really don't understand.

Being local, I could mute the video and get the audio from radio broadcasts... but talk about out of sync! Suddenly I'm listening a batter ahead of the video, instead of a pitch ahead!

[robbo]

I'm not aware of Tom McCarthy's contact status. My initial comment about him remaining in place for years or decades is more about my fear of inertia keeping him in place than anything else. If the powers that be haven't realized how bad he is after 10 or so years, I don't think it's suddenly going to occur to them.

When I was trying to ballpark in my mind how long he's been here, I was thinking back...I remember he started doing the postgame show on radio. The very first time I heard him speak, I thought - good voice! And then once I listened for a few more minutes, I thought - has this guy ever seen a baseball game before? Then he left to go to the Mets - and I laughed at the Mets. Then he came back...cue sad trombone.

[zambonir]

It is totally fair to think he will be there forever. But, the Phillies no longer directly hire their TV broadcast team (though they obviously have input, as well as an ownership stake in the network) and even if they did, there's a mostly new regime (on the business side as well). And there have been a lot of changes both there and on the radio side over the past few years.

I just haven't ever seen any report about McCarthy's contract being renewed or extended so that makes me wonder if it is year-to-year, or if there was an automatic or unannounced extension. Might be wishful thinking.

julio, yeah, that's why I never used the feature very often. I really should do audio-only more, half the time I'm not looking at the TV anyway. I think all the MLB.TV app features depend greatly on which device and how new it is, as well as speed of course. Buggy as it can be, it still kinda blows my mind to watch HD quality video this way (particularly if I'm casting from phone).

[mdougherty12]

It's not as obvious as it used to be, but I figured out how to do the radio broadcast audio overlay with MLB.TV this weekend on my Roku after some googling. On the Roku, I can press the * button to go into settings and select different audio tracks, either the TV feed or radio feed, I think the Spanish language feed was an option, too.

[julio]

It's not as obvious as it used to be, but I figured out how to do the radio broadcast audio overlay with MLB.TV this weekend on my Roku after some googling. On the Roku, I can press the * button to go into settings and select different audio tracks, either the TV feed or radio feed, I think the Spanish language feed was an option, too.

I'm going to go test this right now, because it's something I have used and want to use again! Thanks for the tip!

[julio]

Yep. It works. Cool!

There were four audio options - the TV audio, the radio audio, a no-commentary audio (field mike only, I presume), and the Spanish language audio.

The field mike-only option may sound goofy, but it's actually pretty nice if you want to watch the game in a room where there are other things going on. No announcer chatter to interfere with discussion, but you get the rise in crowd noise when something important happens, etc.

[zambonir]

Likewise, thanks! My Roku is my worst device right now but I'll check it (and the others).

[donaldorc]

I loved Graham, and currently like Franzke coupled with LA. But I'm one of the older guys who prefer the game of baseball on radio. I refuse to pay the price for the TV package. Regarding Kruk, I watched the MLB game of the week on Facebook last week, and I found him to be hilarious. Don't know how he'd hold up day in and day out.

[phillychuck]

What are the current blackout rules with MLB.tv? I might subscribe, but I live in Bethlehem and I think I'd get blacked out on almost every game broadcast by Comcast.

[el-pietro]

I really liked Matt Stairs a couple years back. Kruk is fine but he very clearly doesn't want to be there. Maybe it will get better when the weather warms up but he spent most of last week complaining.

As it happens Tom McCarthy is some how even more dull on twitter
https://twitter.com/TMacPhils

And hes a Mets fan right?