Former GM Ken Williams patiently waits to ask new GM Rick Hahn a question

SoxFest was fun this year. Although last week I was lamenting that there wasn’t a Festivus session, it turned out to be a perfectly good thing. There were plenty of great stories, good looks on the players (despite what some may think, Matt Thornton’s beard really is spectacular!) as well as learning that there is a ton of personality with this group and they enjoy each other.

In past year’s, I have done posts where you can read my timeline from twitter over the days. However, this year I just didn’t have time to do that. You can always go back and look at it and I may get around to compiling it to archive soon before it is no longer available. The best news of me tweeting this year was that I managed to stay out of Twitter Jail. This was surprising to me considering all the good tidbits the players and coaches had to share. » Continue reading “Lessons Learned At SoxFest 2013″

This past weekend’s series in Oakland saw a reuniting in the booth of Ken “Hawk” Harrelson and Tom “Wimpy” Paciorek. Steve Stone, Hawk’s usual analyst for games was taking a few days off. When the announcement was made these two would be in the booth, my first reaction was, “why do I have to deal with the blackout restrictions on MLB.TV and this would be a great time to have MLB Package on my cable to watch any games I wanted, both home and away broadcasts.

Hawk Harrelson and his usual broadcast partner Steve Stone

I realize I am in the minority, but I’m saying it anyway. I don’t like Hawk and Wimpy. I never did like them. In fact, their broadcasting was the primary reason that I would listen to the games on the radio with my tv muted back in the day. It was a habit I did for the longest of time, until eventually I just learned to semi tune out Hawk and all of his hawkisms. It also helped that Wimpy was gone as well. I am not totally sure what exactly it is about those two that drove me to the radio broadcast, but it reminds me in general that a lot of broacasters today are just awful.

Nowadays, it seems every guy in the booth is looking to do schtick so he can stand out amongst all the broadcasters. Some of my favorites are the “old school” guys like Ernie Harwell and Vin Scully. Those guys were / are just classy about calling a game. Sure, Vin will tell you a story that seemingly has nothing to do with what is happening on the field, but he does it in such a way, that you just feel comforted. Not to mention when Vin tells a story, he doesn’t miss a beat in telling you what is going on in the game. » Continue reading “Please Stop Hurting My Ears”