Solid Spring Training Debut for the Rookie

[Lefty Specialist]

Ron Darling doing the play-by-play. He's no Gary Cohen, but nobody is.

Started a little rough but got smoother as the game wore on. He's better at describing the action than he is reading the promos. Certainly helped that he had Keith with him.

The only down side is that if he's too good at this we're going to lose him to somebody else some day.

And Steve Gelbs is annoying. He hasn't improved from last year, unfortunately.

[Frayed Knot]

This isn't the first time Ronnie has PH'd doing p-b-p. I think it's even happened during a reg season game or two.
Either way, I don't think someone is going to hire him to do it on a regular basis except for the color work he's already doing for TBS's GotW and post-season. But there's not enough network baseball to have him leave the Mets broadcasts entirely and it's tough to figure on another team making an offer so attractive that he'd leave here to just do the same thing somewhere else.


As far as Gelbs goes, I'd be fine if they simply went without a sideline guy. For the most part I always thought they were a waste of time (in all sports) until Burkhardt came along and turned what was usually a kind of self-indulgent 'Hey look what we can do' job into virtually a must-watch segment. But unless you can find a sub who can make it that way again I'd just as soon they drop the whole concept.

Edited March 7, 2015 by Guest

[Edgy MD]

Darling did some play-by-play his first year with Washington. He wasn't no good, but he wasn't any better at analysis.

I don't think the Mets are about to lose Darling. He could certainly get a national job, but still do the Met the rest of the week, like Lindsay Nelson and Tim McCarver did.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy MD wrote: Darling did some play-by-play his first year with Washington. He wasn't no good, but he wasn't any better at analysis.

By his own admission he was terrible -- although he took the job on something like (literally) a week's notice and was not only new to the job but was unprepared for it as well, both in terms of his knowledge of the home team and of the league in general. Both he and Keith have talked about their "dark" period, roughly from their retirements through maybe the turn of the century, when they were disconnected from the game that had consumed them for much of the previous three decades or so, so taking the job coming off that era he was bound to be shaky at best.
Fortunately for us, we got the broken-in and more informed version.

[batmagadanleadoff]

In fairness to Dariling, baseball PbP is a tough job for a "rookie". I've seen and heard my share of baseball announcers who went on to become competent PbP men even though they kinda sucked at first. Darling, by the way, was about as bad as could be when he was in Washington.

[Lefty Specialist]

As for the other rookie, Cliff Floyd, he seemed to be pressing for stuff to say in the color role. Gary was helping him out, but there's only so many times you can ask about his gruesome injury.

I think he'll be okay in small doses. Three hours was a bit much for him.