Ralph & Tim, back together again

[Frayed Knot]

During the 3rd inning of Saturday's FOX telecast of the Mets/Dogers game, Ralph Kiner will join Tim McCarver (plus whoever Tim's p-b-p man du jour is these days since Joe Buck is probably doing pre-game research for some all-important exhibition football game) in the TV booth.



btw, starting times for this weekend's games:

Fri - 7:10, SNY
(Perez v Penny)

Sat - 3:55, FOX national telecast
(Hernandez v Stultz

Sun - 8:05, ESPN national telecast
(Maine v Tomko)

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

Sunday's game may not be started by Tomko but by newly minted Dopdger fat guy David Wells.

[TransMonk]

Frayed Knot wrote: Sun - 8:05, ESPN national telecast (Maine v Tomko)

New old guy David Wells will make the start on sunday for the Dodgers.

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/daily?page=dd/070823

[Guest Edgy DC]

Meanwhile his more sober spiritual brother David Weathers lands in Seattle to start his 13th tenure with his 11th big-league team.

[G-Fafif]

Frayed Knot wrote: During the 3rd inning of Saturday's FOX telecast of the Mets/Dogers game, Ralph Kiner will join Tim McCarver)...

FK, thanks for the tip! It's taken a dozen seasons but a Fox game is actually worth looking forward to.

[smg58]

Edgy DC wrote: Meanwhile his more sober spiritual brother David Weathers lands in Seattle to start his 13th tenure with his 11th big-league team.

For whom? It better not have been a price the Mets could have comfortably beaten.

[nymr83]

G-Fafif wrote: ="Frayed Knot"]During the 3rd inning of Saturday's FOX telecast of the Mets/Dogers game, Ralph Kiner will join Tim McCarver)... FK, thanks for the tip! It's taken a dozen seasons but a Fox game is actually worth looking forward to.

McCarver has become a total pain in the ass since the time he was here and Kiner isn't 100% there anymore, i'll watch anyway but i'm not looking forward to it more than any other met game, and it'll probably take all of 2 innings for me to switch over to McCarthy

[Willets Point]

Nymr83 wrote: ="G-Fafif"] ="Frayed Knot"]During the 3rd inning of Saturday's FOX telecast of the Mets/Dogers game, Ralph Kiner will join Tim McCarver)... FK, thanks for the tip! It's taken a dozen seasons but a Fox game is actually worth looking forward to. McCarver has become a total pain in the ass since the time he was here and Kiner isn't 100% there anymore, i'll watch anyway but i'm not looking forward to it more than any other met game, and it'll probably take all of 2 innings for me to switch over to McCarthy

Luckily for you the reunion lasts only one inning.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Nymr isn't 100% there anymore.

[smg58]

smg58 wrote: ="Edgy DC"]Meanwhile his more sober spiritual brother David Weathers lands in Seattle to start his 13th tenure with his 11th big-league team. For whom? It better not have been a price the Mets could have comfortably beaten.

Did you mean Rick White? He'd obviously be less of a big deal at this point.

[Guest Edgy DC]

I DID! My chunky goateed righthanded bullpen journeyman circuitry wiring is on the fritz again.

Sorry to screw that up, but I really don't think Weathers can bring the Mets anything they don't have. Yeah, Mota's struggles are ugly to watch, but if the Mets weren't leading this thing by five, I think they'd be hammering away at Joe Smith instead of --- responsibly, to my thinking --- trying to right Smith in the minors and right Mota in the majors.

[Guest Johnny Dickshot]

What's going on?

Rick White is pitching for Seatte?

Or Weathers?

[Guest Edgy DC]

Rick White.

Edgy isn't 100% there anymore.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

I hope if I see 85 (as unlikely as that seems to me most days) I'm as together as Ralph is.
It pains me to see him made sport of on a baseball board - it's just plain disrespectful of a
great baseball personality who's lucky to still be livin' the dream life.

[nymr83]

so we're supposed to pretend everything is fine like King George's publicists do?

[Guest Kid Carsey]

No, you're supposed to respect your elders. Hopefully you'll see 85 and people won't
disrespect you. Hard to tell if you've misrepresented your age over the years, by my
count you should be in your mid-20's and not such a punk sometimes.

[nymr83]

i'm "a punk" for telling the truth about an aging broadcaster's mental state? i didn't hear a peep out of anyone when a much less respectful conversation about Steinbrenner was going on, I guess its only "disrespectful" when we're talking about a Mets-related person?
get over it.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

Nothing to get over, I'm just sayin' what I was thinking.

[Guest Kid Carsey]

And you're not a very good lawyer or lawyer in the making if you think that injecting
Steiny into the argument has anything to do with what I said. Stick to the subject,
counsleor ... Kiner.

[Frayed Knot]

FWIW, I think Ralph is fine mentally.
He has some obvious problems expressing himself at times which would make him tough to listen to over the long haul. But I still enjoy his pop-ins with the local crew and I think he and Timmy - who had a great and unforced chemistry between them back in the day - will be worth listening to for an inning via a national broadcast.

(like I'm not going to be watching the game no matter who they put there)

[Guest Edgy DC]

I think Ralph is fine mentally as well, and paying more attention to the game at large than a lot of younger full-time announcers. Physically, he's been struggling for years. If he's not doing well mentally, then he wasn't in 1989 and 1979 either.

Everything is not fine and nobody's pretending it is. It's plain obnoxious to (1) restate the opinions others in a distorted manner, (2) declare your opinons to be the truth.

What was disrespectful about the conversation about Steinbrenner?

[Guest SI Metman]

Definatley looking forward to it and plan on altering my schedule to get home a little earlier than I intended. From what I heard, Kenny Albert (and thankfully not Joe Buck tomorrow) will take the 3rd inning off and let Timmy do p-b-p.

[Centerfield]

Hearing Ralph and McCarver together moved me a lot more than I thought it would. Great to hear and see them go back and forth again. I almost forgot Tim could do play-by-play.

I must have heard the "We can finish last without you" story a million times. It never gets old.

If you're a Mets fan and didn't feel something today, I'd check for a pulse.

[G-Fafif]

]Hearing Ralph and McCarver together moved me a lot more than I thought it would. Great to hear and see them go back and forth again. I almost forgot Tim could do play-by-play. I must have heard the "We can finish last without you" story a million times. It never gets old. If you're a Mets fan and didn't feel something today, I'd check for a pulse.

CF, you are 100% on the mark. The first minute of hearing those two voices blending together again gave me an unexpected chill. The whole inning was a treat. McCarver, it was often said in the '80s, made Kiner so much better. Absolutely true. But I would add that Kiner made McCarver better, too, particularly Saturday. Tim's overbearing tendencies melted away in Ralph's presence. Tim, meanwhile, didn't approach Ralph as a delicate heirloom. In between their awesome anecdotes (Satchel Paige, Kareem Abdul-Jabaar and Ralph Kiner in one story?), they did the game and they did it well. It had me fantasizing that if they could do a whole homestand, they'd shake the rust off completely. Even if it was just one golden inning far removed from their mutual glory days, it was simply wonderful to hear the two old friends and colleagues mesh like that.

Kudos to Fox and kudos to Steve Albert's nephew Kenny for stepping aside.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Anybody get it recorded?

[Valadius]

Tim's just completely lost it though.

[Elster88]

Centerfield wrote: Hearing Ralph and McCarver together moved me a lot more than I thought it would. Great to hear and see them go back and forth again. I almost forgot Tim could do play-by-play. I must have heard the "We can finish last without you" story a million times. It never gets old. If you're a Mets fan and didn't feel something today, I'd check for a pulse.

Missed Ralph. Which is the "We can finish last without you" story?

[DocTee]

After Ralph led the NL in homers for seven straight years, Branch Rickey cut his salary. Kiner complained, Rickey replied

[Gwreck]

I just watched it on the DVR (sorry Edgy, don't have the equipment necessary to make a recording of it) and have to agree with Centerfield and Greg's thoughts.

I was never a huge fan of McCarver or Kiner but the memories of watching them on WWOR Channel 9 did come right back. It was a remarkable transformation to see McCarver drop 90% of the buffonery when he moved back to play by play. Of course, he did refer to Jose Reyes as "the catalytic converter of the Mets machine" which probably goes somewhere in the 20-50 range of the dumbest things McCarver's said on the air.

Was a very nice touch of Fox to have Albert's microphone turned off for the inning.

[Valadius]

Dumb things McCarver said yesterday:

"Jose Reyes is one of the 10 best players of the last 50 years"
"As they head into December..." (should have said September)