Kelly asks:
You have to move to one of the states bordering New York. Which one, and where in that state?
Vermont, the 14th state, which was once part of New York, sort of. It’s a very progressive state. “The Vermont Republic abolished slavery before any other U.S. state…Vermont approved women’s suffrage decades before it became part of the national constitution. Women were first allowed to vote in the December 18, 1880 elections when they were granted limited suffrage…. It was the first state to introduce civil unions in 2000 and legalize same-sex marriage in 2009, unforced by court challenge or ruling.”
I’d probably move to the teeming metropolis of Burlington. The city has about 50,000 people, but the metropolitan statistical area has about 225,000, about one-third of the state’s population. It’s near Lake Champlain, with several ferries crossing into New York.
Favorite sports announcer, reporter, or writer?
First, it would probably be limited to baseball and football because that’s all I read about and watch enough to offer an opinion other than Jim Nantz’s coverage of men’s college basketball.
Baseball
Writers: Roger Angell, Peter Gammons, Roger Kahn, Dan Shaughnessy, George Will (yes, THAT George Will), former MLB pitcher Jim Bouton, and, of course, Terence Mann.
Announcers: On one end of the spectrum is the voice I most identified with the game while growing up: Mel Allen. He was the “longtime voice of baseball’s weekly highlight show, This Week in Baseball.”
But I also enjoyed Vin Scully’s dulcet tones, even though I tended not to root for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Mark Evanier wrote in 2013: “You know what needs Vin Scully? When no one cares about anything happening on the field. The outcome of the game doesn’t matter. One team is six runs ahead. The stands are two-thirds empty because even the people who showed up decided that the fifth inning was a good time to head home and beat the non-existent traffic. That’s when somehow Vinnie manages to make it interesting. Even I sometimes listen to him then. What a great talker.”
Bob Costas was always prepared with a story, even during a rain delay.
There are George Owens and Harry Doyle; in other words, Bob Uecker.
Football
Announcers: On the one hand, I like the straightforward play-by-play folks such as Pat Summerall. BTW, “The urban legend was his nickname became “Pat” because of the abbreviation for “point after touchdown” that a field-goal kicker was credited for in a game summary. But in a 1997 Dallas Morning News story, Summerall said after his parents divorced, he was taken in by an aunt and uncle who had a son named Mike. ‘My aunt and uncle just started calling me Pat to go with their Mike,’ Summerall would say, referencing frequently named characters in Irish jokes told during that time.”
However, for color commentary, I was fond of former Raiders coach John Madden. They were a great team.
Here’s my pet peeve: the sideline reporters who talk to head coaches either at the end of the half or right before the third quarter. They ask mundane questions about what they will do differently in the second half. The answers, by definition, are pretty dull: “Well, we have to make more third downs,” “We’ll have to hold onto the ball better,” or “We’ll have to cut down on those penalties.” It’s almost always some obvious thing that you already know if you were watching the game. Useless, pointless. The coaches have been gracious about it, but it’s unnecessary blather.
Both
Writers: Frank Deford, Michael Smith, Red Smith.
Announcers: there’s a bunch of them, among them Al Michaels.