Official Rangers off season thread

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by jthig32

He did.

The baseball thing is weird. For one, it seems pretty clear that he doesn't really know that much about baseball. He tends to give very generic views on things, and Nadel tend to step in and correct him on things.

He also has real trouble with the cadence of the game. When things are moving slow, he fills in with a lot of extra info and discussion, and then he lets that filler step on the actual game. I can't tell you how many times I've heard "Oakland beats Anaheim 3-1, ball outside, Toronto beats blah blah blah blah blah...just outside 2-2". Like he gets so caught up in the non-game-related filler that he forgets that we can't see when a pitcher goes into his windup, etc. and just completely stops describing the action.

Drives me completely insane, and it just makes it worse when you hear the greatness of Nadel for over half of the game and then have to be stuck with him.

Nadel is absolute greatness. Talk about painting a picture...he will tell you at the start of the game about the five different shades of color in the sunset. And of course, you always know how the colors of tackle twill are arranged on the uniforms.

I hear you on the cadence thing. Sometimes, on radio, you just need silence.

That said, I can't remember Eric working with anyone who I thought was on his par when it comes to play-by-play. (If the guy were, he would probably have a gig of his own.) I guess you are just hoping for some chemistry between the two. It seems like Barnett could handle that. It was certainly the best thing working for Lewin and Grieve.

Are you old enough to remember Holtz and Nadel? That was a great pairing. Ortegel and Followil reminded me of that in a way.

[Rhylan]

Originally Posted by chumdawg

That said, I can't remember Eric working with anyone who I thought was on his par when it comes to play-by-play.

I was going to lose my mind before you eventually did mention Holtz. In the late '80s/early '90s before they moved to KRLD, and I could actually listen in Hamilton, Holtz was doing play-by-play at the beginning and end and Nadel only got the middle three. They may not have always done the 3-3-3 arrangement, but I can vouch it was that way at least from '91-'93 when I listened to every home game because we didn't get HSE. So to me, Holtz was a play-by-play guy moreso than an analyst.. and he was a god among men.

[chumdawg]

Originally Posted by Rhylan

I was going to lose my mind before you eventually did mention Holtz. In the late '80s/early '90s before they moved to KRLD, and I could actually listen in Hamilton, Holtz was doing play-by-play at the beginning and end and Nadel only got the middle three. They may not have always done the 3-3-3 arrangement, but I can vouch it was that way at least from '91-'93 when I listened to every home game because we didn't get HSE. So to me, Holtz was a play-by-play guy moreso than an analyst.. and he was a god among men.

Yeah, it was WBAP in those days, right? 820 on your radio dial. Holtz was always a play-by-play guy. I may be mistaken, but I think Holtz used to do the play-by-play all nine innings, with Nadel as color only. I remember thinking it was weird when Holtz did color. But maybe that was just me getting used to it...not sure when Nadel got started...I was listening since about '86.

I had thought earlier that thiggy was talking about Barnett as being a new voice on the scene. I now realize that I was listening to him for at least last year. He's such a familiar voice to me, that it doesn't register. But now that I think back to last year, I'm not sure I can share thiggy's sentiment. Barnett does a good job of the capturing the moment, when it is big.

Speaking of, I think the greatest moment in all of Rangers broadcasting was Nadel saying "He's going after the legend!"