The Tool Shed: Absentee Baltimore Orioles Radio Announcers

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a broadcast station in need of sports announcers must hire total butt hats. Consider, among others: Tim McCarver, Joe Buck, Ken Harrelson, Thom Brennaman, Dick Vitale, Jeff Brantley, and Eric Karros.  All kind of terrible.

And then there are Joe Angel and Fred Manfra, a couple clowns from the Baltimore Orioles flagship station, 105.7 The Fan, who left a spring training game during a rain delay, and therefore didn’t call the last eight innings.

There’s been some back-and-forth in the media about why Angel and Manfra skipped out.  One version is that they chose to leave, telling their bosses the game had been called. 

Another is that their bosses instructed them to head out. Yet another is that the engineers and so forth left, so they couldn’t complete the game.

To all of this I say: Dudes. Come on. 

I know it’s spring training, but in a case like this you don’t choose to leave, and if your bosses tell you to do so, you do a bit of kicking and screaming, stick around to see whether the game resumes, make sure those bosses know they’re idiots before you head back to your hotel, and enjoy a Toblerone from the mini bar.

‘Cause guys, your job is to watch baseball and talk about it.  Most of us call that an American pastime, just another Tuesday, or perhaps something to blog about from the depths of our mothers’ basements. 

But you?  You make a living at it, and your gig comes with a staff to feed you statistics and historical facts and other serious whatnot, while you (a) narrate action on the field, (b) yap about the famous athletes you count amongst your friends, and (c) attribute your own thoughts and emotions to players even though you have no idea what’s going on in their coconuts. (Joe Morgan, I’m looking at you.)

But watching and yapping, that’s just the cake. 

The icing: free travel, entertainment allowances, ticket access, ogling ladies in baseball stands across the nation, telling folks you meet at parties, “Hey, I’m kind of a big deal.” 

All this, plus you leave your pubescent kids behind to drive your wife crazy for the better part of baseball season.

Tell me, please, what you were planning on doing that’s better than that?

Picking up college girls? Hitting a beach to work on your tan? Pitching a ponzi scheme?  Each other?

Oh, that’s right, nothing. Nothing is better than that. I dock you infinity points for taking for granted the best job ever, plus disappointing Baltimore’s seven baseball fans (zing!). 

But sucking at life does have its perks: I hereby grant you entry into the prestigious JSF Tool Shed. Welcome, gentlemen.