{"id":99,"date":"2011-10-23T12:51:42","date_gmt":"2011-10-23T17:51:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/?p=99"},"modified":"2011-10-23T12:53:00","modified_gmt":"2011-10-23T17:53:00","slug":"play-by-play-or-bandleader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/2011\/10\/23\/play-by-play-or-bandleader\/","title":{"rendered":"Play by Play or Bandleader?"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it comes to play by play announcing there are two issues to consider..who’s your audience and more importantly, how seriously do you want to be considered?…The worst label an announcer can get tagged with is being known as a “homer”, someone who never criticizes the home team, someone who doesn’t “tell it like it is”, \u00a0to quote the legendary Howard Cosell<\/a>…It’s not always easy considering your paycheck may come from that very team you are holding accountable but being objective is always the goal…<\/p>\n

Play by play on television and radio differ greatly, especially when it comes to being honest about what’s going on…One might think that a radio call of an event might sometimes be tempered by the very fact listeners cannot see what’s going on but at a recent Sports Journalism Seminar at Boston University’s series, Nick Gagalis<\/a>, who calls the radio games for the Worcester Tornadoes of the Can Am baseball league and the also the American Hockey League’s Providence Bruins disagreed…said Gagalis, “Sometimes it sounds more biting when it’s on the radio because my style is to describe things and go back and show you exactly how it happened…That helps me, someone especially who hasn’t played the game as much, to understand myself why it happened, let alone the viewers…If I was on TV, it would be easier because I \u00a0would say less and be more careful about what i said…”<\/p>\n

Listening to a game and watching a game may be very different experiences but draw the same visceral reaction(s)…why else would Awful Announcing<\/a> have been born?<\/p>\n

Current NBA analyst for ESPN Doris Burke<\/a> joined Gagalis that night at Boston University and passed along some good advice she got from former Providence College \u00a0basketball coach and later Big East Commissioner Dave Gavitt….”No one turns the game on to hear the announcer, Gavitt told Burke , just make sure they don’t turn it off because of you…”<\/p>\n

It’s a lesson Burke has remembered for more than twenty years now…A good place to start….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it comes to play by play announcing there are two issues to consider..who’s your audience and more importantly, how seriously do you want to be considered?…The worst label an announcer can get tagged with is being known as a “homer”, someone who never criticizes the home team, someone who doesn’t “tell it like it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":901,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/901"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions\/104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bu.edu\/fshorr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}