A Lament for the Local
How do you follow Michigan sports? Or even pro-sports, not to be excepted. National broadcasts, no doubt, from national sportscasters. That's to be expected.
ESPN! The Big Ten Network! CBS and ABC! Where folks from New York and California give us the game's keys.
"The home team is very good," they say. "But of course, so is away." "We'll cheer for both, and neither too, because that's the professional way."
I pine for Ernie. I pine for Bob, with General Patton's horn. I want a homer broadcast, sure as I was born.
"Touchdown Meechigan!" and "It's LOOONG gone!" 'Truck drivers in Columbus', these phrases must live on.
Nearly vanished from history are the days of fire; vocal, coarse. Leading the battle chant, as a corps drummer leads the force.
No more into the pitch, to put down hated enemy. It's even handedness and sportsmanship, down with enmity.
Upon the field of battle dwells adversity. The voice of those in support can set emotion free. But from the tower overlooking, where once the cheers rang out, now come the latest west coast numbers, and the game gets nary a shout.
My blood runs blue, my fever maize; or blue and orange, on Tiger days. I crave my compatriots of days gone by, men who would gladly stab the enemy in the eye. Now national casters, appeasing national viewers, wouldn't even touch the skewer.
A lament for the local. A requiem for home support. It seems never again will the voices of the faithful ring out, broadcast, from the fort.
I appreciate the sentiment and generally agree. But, I think we have some pretty decent local announcers here if you can get the local stations. I think Dan DIckerson is great on Tigers play by play. He has a good voice and makes the game easy to follow. Jim Price is a little too much into himself, but he's grown on me. His whole, "nice area" thing is pretty funny. Ken Kal (sp?) and Paul Woods are great on Red Wings games and I can live with Dan Miller for the Lions.
Beckman and Brandstatter are pretty solid Michigan homers. Not quite as good as the few years they had Hanlon on, but they're definitely giving you a maize and blue slant. My issue with them is that they are generally pretty terrible at actually describing what is going on in the game. In the rare, horrible instances when I'm not at the game or able to watch on TV, I hate listening to those guys. Shepard isn't much better for hoops. All in all, UM has good homer announcers, they just need to get better at actually describing the action.
I was asked to give a campus tour to a group of prospective UM football players and their parents. All were high school juniors in town for a mini-camp. Bo was still coach, Mo his assistant. In exchange for the tour, I was offered a seat at a luncheon with Bo and two tickets to a game later that fall, (I'd have done it without the tickets, but since you're offering ....).
Jerry Hanlon was on my tour. He was a delightful man, as friendly as anyone as I'd ever met. I remember standing in the Diag, near the 'M', and giving the usual spiel about the buildings, the curse of the 'M', etc. As I was wrapping up, Jerry said, "You left out a bunch of stuff!" and started waxing on about the history of the place since he'd been there. From that point on, he practically led the rest of the tour. He was jovial, funny, and warm hearted. He was obviously having as much fun as I was, and probably more. After the dozens I'd given that summer, it was a welcome change, and easily the most memorable.
When he retired from Michigan Football and began broadcasting, that same spirit came through the radio each football Saturday. Hanlon is quite a guy.
I feel you, there are some awful national commentators out there... and yeah... it's always better to have a fan calling the games for you. I get my back-home fix through listening to Ron Santo do the Cubs games. I get a grainy 720AM through the radio in Michigan, and I think that Pat Hughes does such a good play by play, allowing Ron to wax on all things Cub (and otherwise... like the attendance game).
Anyway, yeah, I get my fix through the radio.
As someone who remembers where he was (albeit young) when Harry Caray died, my sympathies go out to all Tigers fans
Both loooooooong gone.
When you're on, you're really fucking on...
There's a website I read; maybe you've heard of it.
While I get what you're saying, Ernie Harwell was hardly a homer announcer. He kept it professional pretty much all the time.
The loveable homers aren't all gone yet.
I understand your pain, their aren't to many announcers that have a liking for Michigan.
was then they decided they were "journalists", with all the rules of supposed objectivity that they attached to it. As if it really matters whether a guy calling the game is a fan of one team or another. This bled a lot of the passion out of the booth, IMO. And leads to stupid sights like Kirk Herbstreit not being able to predict the winner of the featured game on College Gameday because he's calling it that night.
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