Marty Brennaman

Jon Miller could be critical of the Orioles, one of the reasons Peter Angelos got rid of him.

Brennaman is awesome. I'm amazed he doesn't swear on the air ... the man's language is, to be generous, quite salty.

 

I believe Brennaman also challenged Ron Santo to a fistfight a couple years back because Santo called Danny Graves "fat." I'm not sure how much guts it takes to challenge a legless man to a fight, but ...

 

 Marty is great.  When Steve Stewart signed on as his sidekick it was fun to listen to the dead air from Stewart whenever Marty criticized the Reds.  Of course, some Reds fans say dead air is the best of Steve Stewart.  I think that's a little harsh.  Brennaman also tweaked the fans of the other MLB team in Ohio a few years ago when they thought the Tribe had invented baseball before it ever won a World Series.  Something to the effect that just a few years earlier you could have fired a cannon into the seats at Cleveland Stadium and not injured anyone.

 

Marty is a treasure, one of the guys who realizes he's broadcasting for the fans and not the players (or their wives). Players bitch and moan, but players also come and go. Martys a constant and a valuable marketing asset for the Reds.

If a performance stinks, you might as well say so. Gives you more credibility when you rave about the good things. But so many teams insist the announcers start shoveling bullshit to cover up the obvious.

 

Miracle of all miracles, Lyman and I find common ground.

I wrote a summer-time column about Brennaman several years ago extolling the very virtues you cite above. I think it was in 2000, the year after the Reds contended for the wild card, and they were bad. The premise of the column was that Marty was so good, he'd compel you to listen to a bad team you would otherwise have no interest in listening to (I explained my Brewers fandom in the column) and, to me, that's the acid test of a true master play-by-play man.

Maybe 10 days later, I get an e-mail from Brennaman. One of my readers had forwarded it to him and he was extremely thankful that I would write about him in such a way and invited me to hang out in the Reds radio booth if I got the chance to cover a game. I was never able to take him up on that, but I don't think I've ever been prouder of an e-mail I've received in my entire life. I still have it on my wall.

He's the gold standard, and this comes from someone who was weened on equally great Bob Uecker.

 

I am by no means a Reds fan, but Marty is quite entertaining. He can be publicly pissy toward his employer, sarcastic and has an unequaled set of chicklets ... what's not to like?

The best Martyism I can remember was from a few years ago around the time he was being inducted into the Hall of Fame. That, of course, brought Pete Rose NOT being in the HOF back into the discussion. Marty was pissed that Pete wasn't in and Johnny Bench was (if I recall correctly) a bit ambivalent about the whole thing and I think Marty and JB got into a bit of a tiff about it.

So, coming back from a commercial in between innings, Marty was trying to wrap up a story to someone off-mic (I can only imaging he was talking about his HOF speech in reference to Bench) and you could hear him yell to someone across the room:

"... so I said I'll show you the goddamn speech."

 

Brennaman HATED Bowden and takes potshots at him whenever possible.

I was lucky enough to listen the night after Bowden was arrested for a DUI. The sarcasm and virtriol was damn near seeping out of my XM, but Brennaman was never direct about it, cutting Bowden to shreds with 1,000 incisions. It was awesome.

Does Brennaman still do NCAA basketball tournament games on Westwood One? He was very good at that too.

 

He was very good at NCAA basketball. I don't think he does it anymore, which is too bad.

And indeed, even when the Reds suck, it's worth listening just to hear him. Hope he's not planning to retire any time soon.

And, Bubbler, if there's one place where righties and lefties can find common ground, I've found it to be baseball. ;D

"22,304 witnessed tonight's titanic struggle ..."

 

Living in the Midwest, it's such an interesting contrast between the Reds and Cubs announcers, or Reds and Indians announcers. After listening to Brennaman, then listening to Santo, I can understand why someone would want to kick Santo's fellatio-giving, orgasm-in-the-booth whenever the Cubs do something good-ass, legs or not.

AND TOM HAMILTON, WHO WAS OK AS A SECOND-BANANA TO HERB SCORE, SPEAKS AT EAR-SPLITTING VOLUME AND IS ABOUT AS OBJECTIVE AS PRAVDA. LOUD NOISES!!

Both announcing teams make Mike Shannon palatable in comparison, even if he does sound like he's gurgling glass and he's had 13 too many clear, crisp Busch Lights.

 

As far as Midwest broadcasters go, I'll give a big thumbs-up to the Brewers. Bob Uecker and Jim Powell are very good. It's funny to hear Uecker play it straight on the broadcasts when he doesn't in just about everything else he does.

Pat Hughes on the Cubs games is very good, particularly when you consider he has to carry Santo.

Denny Matthews and Ryan Lefebvre on the Royals' games are solid.

Don't care much for John Gordon on the Twins games (he's a lot like Tom Hamilton), but Dan Gladden is OK.

Haven't listened to a Tigers game since Ernie Harwell retired.

And the White Sox? Forget it. I don't think there's a worse group of announcers for any big-league team, TV and radio combined, although Ed Farmer isn't awful on play by play.

 

Lyman, Westwood One decided to perform fellatio on Kevin Harlan and he ended up doing the radio p-b-p of the Final Four. That is a fucking travesty if there is one.

I love Marty, and this is coming Cubs' fan who'll bribe the HOF committee so that Santo can get in the HOF (if not as a player or broadcaster, but as an unapologetic fanboy). The quote he laid on Griffey Jr. was priceless. It came on the heels of a play the night before. Junior hits a grounder and he dogs it to first, not really trying. Marty rips him a new asshole right on the spot on radio. A few of Juniors' friends hears it, relays it back to Junior and he confronts Marty in the bowels of old Riverfront Stadium the following day.

Junior was more stunned than shocked to see that Marty wasn't backing down and more inclined to whip his ass. Junior goes skulking away as Brennaman bitchslaped him with the "I was here before you got here, I'll be here when you're gone" line.