Open Letter to the Rangers re: John Rhadigan

Benjamin isn’t a lone voice of descent here.

Rangers brass (if you bother reading this):

At least he’s not a Rex Hudler, cocaine-fueled sort of announcer. That’s all I can say for him except that I’m sure he’s a nice guy and he’s probably doing his best. Definitely belongs in broadcasting but I don’t think calling plays will ever be his strength. He’s more of a journalist/anchor type and there’s nothing wrong with that. This is the team’s mistake. You win the AL pennant and let a good play-by-play guy go, then replace him with someone who has no experience? Really? I mean if it were the mid-Aughts, the team was bad, and Josh Lewin had bolted for a new gig, sure…try a John Rhadigan. But not when you’re in the spotlight.

I want to add that I think Tom Grieve is excellent at his job. Can’t speak for everyone but I bet most people would agree.

Well done.

At the very least should open some eyes.

I’d almost say you got two for the price of one by posting it here too.

that this is very, very well written. Covers the main issues while maintaining a tone of respect and admiration. Appropriately concise without missing any important points. Not sure how much you edited this before sending/posting – you did a very good job with this. Couldn’t have put it better myself. (and I’m a top 1-2% person (kidding))

Move him into the studio for the post-game wrap ups and get Renner off of my TV. But get Rhadigan out of the booth already, he’s drowning in there and it’s embarrassing to watch.

Great letter. Thanks for representing us.

Seems like I’m way outnumbered, but I say give him some time to improve…. I will admit, the “let’s play ball, y’all” has to go and has to go now. The other mistakes, maybe it’s nervousness? Surely he can’t be is dumb as he sometimes seem.

Well said.

I think this might be one of the few times where someone from this site could do better than the guy in the booth. I just don’t think John has actually watched all that much baseball. IMO he seems like a casual fan who just so happens to be in the booth. I don’t think he has seen enough baseball to understand what a routine play looks like.

Regardless of what we say I think he will get to at least finish this year. During that time I think he will become decent at PBP simply due to the amount of baseball he is going to have to watch.

 I turned the volume up for a couple of innings today and his calls of the mundane are better than they used to be. My biggest problem right now is he seems to be just as excited when the bad guys do something good as when the Rangers do. It’s very odd having someone who should be on our side sounding excited when a Yankee or Tiger hit a dong it really bugs me.

FWIW I have just moved over to syncing up the MLB at bat stream with the TV and it works well I even piped it into my stereo so I still get good sound.

It’s been 14 fucking games. Give the guy a chance, people.

You think it’s some kind of easy skate, calling MLB play by play?

LSB seems to think every commentator other than Lewin, Grieve, and Vin Scully are brain dead stumblebums.

Not only is Ryan completely stubborn and hard-headed about these issues, bu he’s a personal friend to Rhaigan as well. I just don’t see anything happening for years.

This was really the only reason I was bummed that Greenberg left.. cause I really felt enough bad stuff from us then he would step in and make the change. Not Ryan though.

or he did a really terrible job of explaining it the other day.

http://www.youtube.com/coachella

It is half of a month of the baseball season, and they will want to give him a chance. Broadcasting play-by-play is not easy, and his lack of experience shows. But it just irritates me that he is not listening to TAG, and he contradicts him. It is one thing not to be able to read a fly ball off the bat. I’ve always watched the direction and the reaction of the outfielders to know where the ball is going.

It is another thing not to learn from a man that played baseball, was a G.M. and has been in the booth for a long while. Confusing players, that may be ok for a beginner. But what is a beginner doing in a major league booth? What really bugs me is the stilted Texas schtick that seems to be forced into games. Stop it…please!

I know if I had a vote on the Rangers board, I would vote to move Mike Capps up from Triple A Round Rock to the Rangers baseball radio booth, and move Eric Nadel to the television booth. That wouldl make the radio fans mad, but would make the television fans happier. Capps is not perfect, but he is definitely a radiio baseball guy with passion and knowledge. I know Nadel can be conversational in the TV booth.

I 100% agree. I have been waiting and hoping for improvement, but it is not there. I can add an example to Rhadigan getting a player wrong. During the Detroit series, Ryan Raburn was at bat with Ramon Santiago on first. Raburn hit the ball to left field and while the camera tracked the ball, Rhadigan said, “Raburn is rounding second and heading towards third.” I was confused about how Raburn could have gotten around second so quickly when he was the batter. Then I saw the runner round third and head for home. I was utterly confused until the camera showed Raburn standing on second. It was Santiago who rounded second and third and then scored, not Raburn. So until the camera pointed out Rhadigan’s error, I thought that Raburn had an incredibly unlikely inside-the-park homerun. This is intolerable from a PBP man.

but for the life of me, I can’t care enough to get upset about it.

“through the wickets and over his head” on a ball that went over the head of Elvis Andrus

fucking bleacher creatures. I can’t stand him as a PBP announcer. I have mlb.tv and at least have a choice as to which broadcast I listen to. I’ve given up on listening to Rhadigan. I would rather listen to water dripping on tin than Rhadigan fuck everything up about my favorite sports team.

Maybe we could send rhads down to round rock to let him straighten out his call

What I don’t understand is if Rhadigan is so bad why do you watch with sound anyway? I don’t know about all you guys but when i watch a baseball game I could watch it just as easily without any sound and know exactly what was going on in the game. As a Ranger fan I know the difference between Borbon and Elvis so when Rhadigan fucks it up I don’t even bat an eye. If you need the PBP people to enjoy a game then you are most likely watching a bad team to begin with.

That was one thing Josh Lewin was great at during the Rangers mediocre years when the summers would just drag on and on was keeping the viewer engaged during those times when the team was playing bad. Now that we have turned around the on field product I can enjoy the game regardless of what the booth is telling me. If you absolutely must listen to something turn to radio.

Rhadigan has been at the gig for two weeks of the regular season now. yes I realize he had a handful of spring training games as well. From watching, and listening, to the telecasts so far what I have noticed is Rhads obviously watches his monitors a majority of the time. I can understand that given his history. I imagine with his duties on pre and post game shows he watched a majority of the games on monitors either in a studio or on set at the ballpark. Also his “interview” or audition for the job was likely done announcing a game that was broadcast on monitors. Thats what he is likely comfortable with at this point which leads to most of his problems.

Watching the broadcast when a ball is hit hes going off what the camera is showing and can thus get confused easily. Add in having to go from monitor to scorebook to media guide for little tidbits to talk about during the dead air and its a lot more difficult than it looks like from a outsiders prospective. Hell tonight you had the PBP crew for a national audience fucking up left and right. thats on a national network being broadcast to the entire country.

I completely understand the arguments about why did we switch to a PBP guy with zero professional experience before now. Especially considering we are coming off a WS appearance and our fanbase is obviously growing and new sponsors, along with a new tv deal, have gone into place. But to bitch and moan about Rhadigan a mere 2 weeks into the season is really pathetic IMO and makes you look like a sad individual.

Rhadigan lucked into this scenario. He’s okay for his old post. But, I hope the complaints helps us find a better replacement. We went to a World Series, why do we need a guy with zero experience?

Thanks to all those with the kind words.

I understand a few of the criticisms… but it seems that a bit of you spent more time getting riled up over the fact that I’m riled up (and were quite wordy with why you thought we, who think this is necessary, were ridiculous) than I actually did voicing my opinion. Kind of one of those “pot calling the kettle black” situations, no?

To the apologists… being bad at one’s job, particularly such a high profile job, is not something that should be tolerated. I certainly hope that when you take a job, you don’t expect your employer to just forgive your consistent, and glaring, mistakes during your tenure.

We are not talking about a junior learning from a sales associate down at your bank branch – we are talking about the lead voice on a network for the defending American League champions. It seems that you guys forget that this is the same network that recently pre-funded the Texas Rangers bank account on a very lucrative television deal. This is a major position, and hence requires someone who is appropriate for the job.

There is absolutely no excuse for someone in Rhadigan’s position to not be aware of the players that are on the field or the situations he is seeing and verbalizing for us. Announcing a game goes beyond the three hours in the booth – it involves homework and study of your team, and the other team’s roster. Pre-game preparation, interviews, understanding of why the team has a lineup in a particular order or anything else relevant to the team. This is his JOB, not his HOBBY, and the rampant amount of apologists who feel that no experience, and no improvement in a fairly significant amount of time (I’m sorry, but there has been no improvement in his tenure here – either he is not being adequately criticized and coached, which is quite possible, or he is just clearly not improving) is okay when you are engaging in your PROFESSION is ludicrous to me. If his issues are with guidance, then the front office and the communications team are to blame. If he has been coached and is not improving on his own, then he is just clearly an inadequate fit for the position. Either way, there exists a problem.

Quite honestly, I would have zero interest working alongside some of the commenters on this post who have such a low standard for what is deemed acceptable in a position of employment.

i tried to be nice as possible and encouraged him to dig a little deeper with his in-game tweets. give us something that we don’t see (presumably b/c he’s there but also b/c he writes about the team). i don’t really want PBP tweeting; there’s never a time when someone can read tweets but doesn’t have access to PBP in some shape, form or fashion. i do think he’s tried a lot harder and done a lot better. twitter can be a really cool tool for enhancing your “viewing” experience, but it can also be a beating reading tweets from 4-5 guys with a big bag of nothing that default to one dimensional PBP.

After so many years of watching the games on TV, I had forgotten the simple pleasure of listening to a game from start to finish on the radio with no pictures. I know we didn’t have Rhadigan last night, but I still spent an extremely enjoyable evening sitting out on the patio with a drink, a scorecard, and Eric Nadel on my ipod. Hell, even Dave Barnett is sounding competent this year in comparison. I’m not a fan of synching the radio and the TV for several reasons, but I definitely see myself turning off the TV and listening to a lot more games on the radio until Rhadigan is out.

other than what is already mentioned here is the fact that he labels practically EVERY ball hit as being ‘sliced.’ Sorry John, just because the ball was hit into play doesn’t mean it was sliced.

Are there PBP guys out there that the Rangers can snap up? Seems like the easiest solution would be to promote Dave Barnett. Is that what people want? I listened to Barnett the other day and though he isn’t exactly great on radio, I’m going to say that he would be better than Rhadigan on PBP. He might be boring but he won’t get in the way of the game, which does seem to be an issue with Rhadigan.

I won’t call myself a Rhadigan apologist (I gave him an F) but I have said that people seem to be nitpicking way too much and I think calling for his head less than a month into the season seems like an overreaction. I wouldn’t be opposed to a change but I’m also not convinced that Rhadigan can’t get markedly better after only a few short months. We’ll see (most likely because I doubt he gets moved until July).

he’s a really nice dude, and he gives out so much gold.

Excellent broadcast tonight, regardless of the outcome of the game.

Maybe move Rhadigan to radio, that way Nadel can take him under his wings and teach him a thing or two. And he doesn’t lose his job.

I was at the game with my Parents last night, they are both in their late 50’s/early 60’s.

They were going on and on about how much they liked “the new guy doing the TV” and how much they couldn’t stand “that crazy guy from last year.”

They are pretty much the tyipcal casual fan — they watch maybe a game or 2 a week, go to a handful a year.

The entire conversation made me sad.

To whom it may concern,

Last year’s run to the World Series was the most magical time I can remember as a sport’s fan. Many of the great moments of the regular season, such as Nelson Cruz’s walk-off home run, Josh Hamilton going from second to home on an infield single, and amazing plays by Elvis Andrus are going to be memories I keep for the rest of my life. Adding to the magic of these moments were some great play by play calls by Josh Lewin, who you as an organization decided not to have back this year. I can’t say I agreed with that decision, but I understood the team wanting to go in a new direction.

Originally the general feeling in the Rangers fan community would be, that because whoever was chosen would be a different vibe than what Lewin brought to the game, the fans should give the person time to make a good impression, and to “give him a chance”. Unfortunately, this was made brutally impossible by John Rhadigan. Rhadigan, I’m sure, is a very nice guy, and although I’m not in the market to see it, by all accounts was very good at his position doing pre and post-game shows. However, he is completely over his head as a play by play broadcaster.

He constantly gets the names of players wrong, he has no idea how to judge a ball, and he brings no excitement when the Rangers are doing well. In particular, in Detroit, he might as well have been the Tigers announcer, because the only time he got excited was when Detroit was doing well. Perhaps the worst effect of the change in announcing is the fact that Tom Grieve has gone from being one of the better color commentators in the league and has completely regressed. He flat out goes long pauses without talking, where as with Lewin, he was always engaged in the game, giving tidbits and insights from his years in the field and in the front office. You’d think, from listening to the game, that there are in fact two new announcers because the change has been so remarkable.

However, there was a change for the better. Recently, when Dave Barnett filled in for Rhadigan, the game became tolerable to listen to again. I’m not a huge fan of Barnett on the radio, although some of that may be working alongside a living legend like Eric Nadel and being compared to him, but on TV, Barnett brought energy back to the broadcast, he had background knowledge and was prepared for the game, which was a welcome change, and even bigger, TAG sounded like the man Rangers fans have come to love. Barnett seems far more suited for Television, and it was easily a massive improvement over the usual game, even in a tough Rangers loss. Similarly, in my time listening to the game on the radio while I was walking my dog, Delgan sounded refreshing on the radio broadcast and shwoed a lot of potential as someone who could do that full time.

The Rangers are the defending AL Champions, one of the most exciting teams in baseball in a major media market, and they deserve a voice of the franchise that reflects that. Hiring someone with no experience was one of the few major missteps this franchise has made, and I would love to see it rectified as soon as possible. It doesn’t have to be bringing in a new person, as last night, both the television and radio broadcasts were just fine. Rhadigan seems like a great anchor for a pre and post-game show, and perhaps that is where he belongs.

Thank you for your time,
*********

and appreciated.

I heard Rhads once, and that was enough – and I’ve always been a fan of his. From his struggle to break-in under Scott Murray and establish a niche, to the Stars post-games with Luddy, I’ve wished him well.

I get the interest in minimalist PBP like Scully and Pat Summerall. It’s just not what I want to hear.

I really wanted to give him a chance, but I think we are seeing the peter principle here.

But he stinks.

he’s a nice guy, but he’s terrible at PBP.

was painful. “what did you say TAG, 46K, well it was 45,769 so you only missed it by 31”

I had to listen to it three times to try to make sense of it