Re: Patriots 10 year contract extension with WBCN

[Shawn Mamros <mamros@MIT.EDU>]

>OK, I know this is a Boston-based list, and many of the posters here are 
>older than myself but I have to say this.  What is the facination with 
>Gil Santos and Gino Cappaletti?  Personally, I think they stink!  [...]

IMO, a sportscaster on a local station covering a local team should
not be judged by the standards of a sportscaster for a nationwide
network covering the same game.  And vice versa.

It comes down to this: Sports fans *want* their local announcers to
be "unabashed homers".  They hate it when the network announcers make
any remark that might even in the slightest way be considered disparaging
to their home team.  Remember the hue and cry on this list when John
Madden dared suggest that Brady and co. fall on the ball and go into
overtime during the tail end of this past Super Bowl?  You'd have
thought Madden was questioning Brady's manhood or something, given
the way some people were reacting, when in fact all he said was that
he thought it was the safer strategy to go into overtime.

The Boston/New England market is hardly the only place where sports
fans like having the local announcers root-root-rooting for the home
team.  I grew up in Steelers country (yeah, yeah, you don't need to
rub it in, we'll see who actually makes the playoffs this year :-),
where for three decades the team's radio color commentator has been
a guy by the name of Myron Cope, who could probably give the late great
Johnny Most a run for his money when it comes to both categories of
"biggest cheerleader for the home team" (and is it any coincidence
that neither the Celtics nor the Steelers have ever had a cheerleading
corps, since they already had/have Johnny and Myron? ;-) and "voice best
suited for a newspaper" (where Cope actually got his start in the biz).
But Steelers fans wouldn't even dream of having the game on without
Myron hmmm-hah'ing his way through it.  His recently published autobiography
is a #1 bestseller in Pittsburgh, which ought to tell you something.

-Shawn Mamros (who admits to having it on his Christmas list...)
E-mail to: mamros@mit.edu