Will Stone return to the booth in '13?

[doublem23]

Originally Posted by chisox12

Yep. Unfortunately he won't be going anywhere. Maybe I'll just get the extra innings package next season and listen to the opposing team's announcers. Wouldn't blame Stoney one bit if he decided he couldn't take working with Hawk anymore.

I'm pretty sure they're blacked out in the local team's market

[Nellie_Fox]

Originally Posted by doublem23

I'm pretty sure they're blacked out in the local team's market

Yep, and unless it's changed since last year, Extra Innings doesn't give you a choice of feeds; you get the home team feed if available. You have to do MLB.tv Premium to have your choice of feeds, and they also black out the local market. When the Sox play the Twins, I have to watch the regular Twins coverage; my MLB.tv is blacked out.

[fisk4ever]

Hawk has turned into a caricature. He is all shtick. Does he ever call a single play without the "can of corn", "we got a man there", "stretch" or "hang wiffem"? The addition of "It's all goood" to the cliche repertoire was the last straw. All repetition, all the time.

I wasn't prepared to like Stone, but found that I do like his insight, especially about pitching.

Homerism doesn't matter either way to me. Intelligent commentary does.

[DeadMoney]

Originally Posted by fisk4ever

Hawk has turned into a caricature. He is all shtick. Does he ever call a single play without the "can of corn", "we got a man there", "stretch" or "hang wiffem"? The addition of "It's all goood" to the cliche repertoire was the last straw. All repetition, all the time.

I wasn't prepared to like Stone, but found that I do like his insight, especially about pitching.

Homerism doesn't matter either way to me. Intelligent commentary does.

I like Domeshot's take on it being like a soundboard majority of the game. Heck, you could probably replace Hawk with a soundboard (that has plenty of old, exaggerated - or made up - Red Sox stories) for a game and no one would know the difference.

[TaylorStSox]

All these make me cringe...

Dreaded lead off walk.
What new?
Don't stop now boys.
Your what hurts?
Where was that pitch?
He may not be the best, but there's no one better.

[salty99]

Originally Posted by TaylorStSox

All these make me cringe...

Dreaded lead off walk.
What new?
Don't stop now boys.
Your what hurts?
Where was that pitch?
He may not be the best, but there's no one better.

Don't forget STRETCH!

[DickAllen72]

Originally Posted by LoveYourSuit

Bad baseball = Bad broadcast

Harry and Jimmy managed to make White Sox broadcasts fun and entertaining even when the Sox were playing terrible baseball.

Hawk makes bad baseball unbearable.

[KingXerxes]

Originally Posted by SI1020

I want a biased announcer. I want a homer. Does everybody have to be a blow dried boring ESPN clone? Jack Brickhouse, Bob Prince, Harry Caray, Jack Buck, Chuck Thompson, even Ernie Harwell in his quiet subdued way were homers.

Very true concerning Brickhouse, Prince and Caray - but I still respectfully disagree with your defense of Ken Harrelson.

While any play-by-play announcer is going to slant toward his team of employment, you act as if there are no degrees of "homerism". You would never have heard tirades out of these guys the way you do with Ken Harrelson. Sure they got excited when the Cubs/White Sox, Pirates or Cardinals/Browns/A's/White Sox/Cubs hit a 3-run homer to win a game, but you would never hear these guys incorporating themselves into the game ala Ken Harrelson. I don't think anybody can truly argue that Harrelson isn't the furthest degree of homerism anybody's ever seen out of a play-by-play announcer, but this is only my second biggest problem with Harrelson.

First and foremost, I don't think Ken Harrelson promotes the White Sox brand as much as he promotes the Ken Harrelson brand. Beat the Hawk (NBC local) and The Hawk Wants You! (White Sox Schedule) are just of couple of examples of what I'm talking about. This guy realized in the 1960's that "The Hawk" brand was a potential money maker for him, and he's gone down that road ever since (I'll do all the favor of not bringing up the Nehru Jackets or the Cowboy Attire). The problem now is the "Hawk" branding is obsolete at best, or beaten into the ground at worst. He just doesn't look good driving around in a mauve dune buggy anymore, and it all seemed so contrived to begin with. He pretty much admits this in his book from the 1960's.

Just my opinion.

[Brian26]

Great exchange between Hawk and Stone in the 3rd inning:


"Ask any GM, it's all about money now."


"I'll ask the Tampa Bay Rays."


"Well, that's only because they have the best manager in baseball today."


"I think it has something to do with all of that homegrown starting pitching."


"Well, how many years did they have to finish in last place to get that?"

[LoveYourSuit]

Originally Posted by Brian26

Great exchange between Hawk and Stone in the 3rd inning

Ouch how awkward.

There was a moment where Hawk was rambling off all the good things abot our rookie pitching staff for about 2 minutes and Stone totally ingored him and countered about only two balls hit into the OF all game vs Santiago .


I think this marriage is over for sure.

[Lip Man 1]

The thing is though both men make valid points in the exchange.

Lip

[BainesHOF]

Originally Posted by KyWhiSoxFan

In many respects, this is the most important question facing Sox brass. If the announcers can be seen as part of the marketing arm of the team (which I believe), then in my opinion some of the blame on the attendance problems over the past decade can be traced to Harrelson. He is one of the biggest homers when it comes to announcers on in TV (from a recent poll), so you can draw a conclusion that he has not been successful in creating new fans, since the Sox have had attendance problems for years.

Fandom is not all created merely by wins and losses (as can be seen by the support of teams like the Cubs) but by latent and nurtured feelings about a team, what it stands for, its public perception, how it plays to a person's feelings and sense of belonging. Harrelson creates a feeling of persecution, made up of bad calls, bad luck, and incessant woe-is-me play by play. People tune it to baseball as a diversion and they don't want to hear all this negativity.

Bingo, especially the part about the negativity.

[BainesHOF]

When the final out is called Wednesday, the Stone-Hawk partnership will be ovah.

They started out working pretty well together this season, but then for some reason things went downhill. It was obvious that at some point Stone complained to someone about Hawk calling him "Stone Pony" because both stopped using nicknames. I'm sure that aggravated the relationship as far as Hawk was concerned.

Then in the second half of the season I heard Stone twice disagree with Hawk by name during his Score appearances. Both times came when the team was on the road so Hawk had no chance of hearing it, but I'm sure that got back to Hawk.

I'm all for Stone leaving. His analysis has always been overrated in this town. Sure, compared to the clowns on the Score, Stone makes a lot of great points. But far too often he's a master of the obvious. Most of the ex-players on the MLB Network are far more insightful than Stone Pony.

One thing I think most people can agree on about Hawk is the guy is genuine. I don't think the same can be said of Stone. Stone has often been an ass toward fans. I saw it firsthand at Soxfest. Then he tries to follow Hawk's lead on broadcasts regarding a fondness for fans and it's incredibly hollow. Brian's right, too, about Stone never selling the product. He has no real enthusiam about the team and organization. It's been pretty obvious down the stretch that Stone knows he's not coming back. He's been giving Hawk some of his own medicine whether trying to get the last word in on a subject or making comments that have nothing to do with what Hawk said.

I'm tired of Hawk's negativity. There's no reason for the broadcasts to be filled with such tension. He's losing his marbles. This is the year he started to making bad mistakes on a regular basis due to age. And of course we all know that he lets his emotions get the best of him. I'm afraid that he's doing to have a Woody Hayes moment. I still like Hawk a lot, but it's time for him to retire for everyone's sake including his own.

I also like Farmer, but I'm tired of his "clever" sidetracking commentary. It's not Jackson's fault. He simply tries to roll with Farmer. The star of the radio broadcast should be the game, not constant D-list humor. Yeah, if the game is a laugher one way or the other then it's okay to get goofy, but Farmer doesn't ever stop with his quirky nonsense. I want to hear about what's happening on the field in the late innings of a close game not some bad, comedic exchanges. Plus I'm more than tired of jokes about Farmer's hits and Jackson's pitching appearance. It was funny the first 100 times, but now it's really stale.

It's time to clean house and present top-notch broadcasts on radio and TV that are worthy of a major market. I was listening to Pat Hughes the other day and it struck me as a revelation. As horrible as the Cubs are, Hughes conveyed a great deal of excitement, enthusiasm and description about the game. We could use a lot more of all those things in both booths.

[slavko]

Originally Posted by BainesHOF

When the final out is called Wednesday, the Stone-Hawk partnership will be ovah.

They started out working pretty well together this season, but then for some reason things went downhill. It was obvious that at some point Stone complained to someone about Hawk calling him "Stone Pony" because both stopped using nicknames. I'm sure that aggravated the relationship as far as Hawk was concerned.

Then in the second half of the season I heard Stone twice disagree with Hawk by name during his Score appearances. Both times came when the team was on the road so Hawk had no chance of hearing it, but I'm sure that got back to Hawk.

I'm all for Stone leaving. His analysis has always been overrated in this town. Sure, compared to the clowns on the Score, Stone makes a lot of great points. But far too often he's a master of the obvious. Most of the ex-players on the MLB Network are far more insightful than Stone Pony.

One thing I think most people can agree on about Hawk is the guy is genuine. I don't think the same can be said of Stone. Stone has often been an ass toward fans. I saw it firsthand at Soxfest. Then he tries to follow Hawk's lead on broadcasts regarding a fondness for fans and it's incredibly hollow. Brian's right, too, about Stone never selling the product. He has no real enthusiam about the team and organization. It's been pretty obvious down the stretch that Stone knows he's not coming back. He's been giving Hawk some of his own medicine whether trying to get the last word in on a subject or making comments that have nothing to do with what Hawk said.

I'm tired of Hawk's negativity. There's no reason for the broadcasts to be filled with such tension. He's losing his marbles. This is the year he started to making bad mistakes on a regular basis due to age. And of course we all know that he lets his emotions get the best of him. I'm afraid that he's doing to have a Woody Hayes moment. I still like Hawk a lot, but it's time for him to retire for everyone's sake including his own.

I also like Farmer, but I'm tired of his "clever" sidetracking commentary. It's not Jackson's fault. He simply tries to roll with Farmer. The star of the radio broadcast should be the game, not constant D-list humor. Yeah, if the game is a laugher one way or the other then it's okay to get goofy, but Farmer doesn't ever stop with his quirky nonsense. I want to hear about what's happening on the field in the late innings of a close game not some bad, comedic exchanges. Plus I'm more than tired of jokes about Farmer's hits and Jackson's pitching appearance. It was funny the first 100 times, but now it's really stale.

It's time to clean house and present top-notch broadcasts on radio and TV that are worthy of a major market. I was listening to Pat Hughes the other day and it struck me as a revelation. As horrible as the Cubs are, Hughes conveyed a great deal of excitement, enthusiasm and description about the game. We could use a lot more of all those things in both booths.

That's pretty good. Seriously. Hawk's ovah the hill. Stone's not being used right, I usually have thought of his brilliant insights before he says them. The someone he complained to was probably Hawk himself. We need some pro's. Maybe we can get Gary Thorne back (yawn). Maybe Len Kasper will change sides (yawn). Still the right idea. Not likely to be able to sell the steak for a few years, sell the sizzle instead.

Maybe John McDonough will come to work here and do what he did for the Hawks and Cubs, which is to say, he fell into a situation where he couldn't fail and managed to not fail.

The only anybody who might sell some tickets and punch up the broadcasts is Willsy and he ain't coming back. I wish he would.

[SOXSINCE'70]

Originally Posted by TaylorStSox

All these make me cringe...

Dreaded lead off walk.
What new?
Don't stop now boys.
Your what hurts?
Where was that pitch?
He may not be the best, but there's no one better.

"Don't stop now,boys" makes me hurl objects at mt flat screen while screaming at hawk to shut up.

No one said being a Sox fan was going to be easy.