N0.1 was a given. The other 100 places are open to discussion.
There are two things baseball fans love – statistics and arguing. Who was better, Ted Williams or Joe DiMaggio? Babe Ruth or Hank Aaron?
“Voices of Summer,” a new book by Curt Smith, is a sure-fire argument starter. In it, Smith, baseball historian and speechwriter for the first President George Bush, rates the 101 best baseball announcers.
Smith covers radio and television broadcasters from 1921 (Harold Arlin was the first, from Forbes Field, using a telephone to cover the Pittsburgh Pirates and Philadelphia Phillies) to the modern day.
Vin Scully tops the heap, natch, the only one on Smith’s scale to score a perfect 100. A Dodgers announcer since 1950, when they were in Brooklyn, Scully turns a phrase like no one else. As Smith gushes, “Vin made network baseball breathe, dance, sing.”
There are others, of course, and baseball fans, as is their wont, will favor their hometown guy. Smith’s top five: Scully, Mel Allen, Ernie Harwell, Jack Buck and Red Barber.
There are puzzlements. Curt Gowdy (11) and Joe Garagiola (15) rank ahead of Bob Costas (18)?
Former Colorado Rockies color man Dave Campbell – “baseball’s bronze warrior” – makes the list at number 64, a spot he earned through his association with ESPN, not his Rockies tenure (1994-97).
Like much of life, “best” baseball announcer is ultimately a personal matter. Picking the best is, as Smith concludes, “Like throwing darts in the fog.”
Fox goes interleague
This weekend marks the beginning of another of baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s bright ideas – interleague play.
Fox Sports kicks off its coverage of major-league baseball with four interleague games: Yankees-Mets, White Sox-Cubs, Astros-Rangers and Angels-
Dodgers, starting at 11 a.m. In all, Fox will broadcast 69 games during 18 weeks of its coverage, including the All-Star Game in Detroit on July 12.
Around the dial
Follow the bouncing ball: ESPN will air almost two full weeks of the French Open in Paris, beginning Monday. ESPN networks will offer 109.5 hours of tennis, including five hours on ESPN Classic beginning at 3 a.m. (MDT) every day of the first week of the tournament. Dick Enberg handles the play-by-play for the 19th time … Three-time Masters and British Open champion Nick Faldo joins Jerry Walters and Jon Lawrence on “In the Fairway” (8 a.m. Sunday, KOA 850-AM) … Barring more rain, qualifying for the Indianapolis 500 resumes Saturday (11 a.m. and 4 p.m., ESPN2, and 3 p.m., ESPN) and Sunday (3 p.m., ESPN2) … NBA playoff viewership has nose-dived, down as much as 35 percent on ABC … Quotable: “I still get goose bumps when I hear a roar before the first pitch.” – Vin Scully.
Dick Kreck’s column appears Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. He may be reached at 303-820-1456 or dkreck@denverpost.com.
