Joe Morgan and Jon Miller

I have to say - I hate Joe Morgan and his sidekick Jon Miller. Then again, each one is really the little Grover Dill sidekick to the other one, and if you're like me, you hope that Ralphie comes in and kicks both of their asses across Indiana's small town set and makes my Christmas Story wish complete.

That said, neither one is particularly bright, and yet, until this year, both were seasoned ESPN Sunday Night Baseball announcers. For 21 years, we've had to hear Joe Morgan pretend to be intelligent (while actually just playing the voice of race) and Jon Miller feign being reasonably competent (while wearing some of the worst suits in history), but alas, they both just suck, and for what a website couldn't do... ESPN finally did.

Orel Hershiser is at least an articulate and fair voice of the game. Bobby Valentine played the game with passion and fire, and if nothing else, for one night in 1999, he made getting ejected into a comedic artwork as he came back to the dugout with a pair of sunglasses and a fake mustache. Baseball players have gotta do something when their fans are having to endure the drudgery of the Mets and the Blue Jays labor through the grueling schedule of interleague play.

But yes... for years, there wasn't much opportunity to watch baseball - until MLBTV came along and made that different. Sure, Fox has the game of the week - if your team is one of the first place teams or the perennial favorites. And sure, there are local team games, but I'm not a Phillies fan, so I can only handle baseball so long with them LET ALONE the Pirates. And while TBS used to be good for Braves games... uh, enough said.

The good news is we're free of them ONCE AND FOR ALL, which is a good thing unless we're going to Cooperstown and we have to see that Jon Miller is in the same place as guys like Harry Caray, Harry Kalas, Ernie Harwell, Bob Uecker, Vin Scully, Red Barber, and Mell Allen. He even gets to be in the Veterans Committee to decide future HOF inductees... talk about travesties.

But nevertheless, there is light at the end of the tunnel, and all is better because he is going to vanish into obscurity - save that vote for or against the steroids guys that he cheered for so long - and isn't that the biggest kicker of them all? How long until Joe gets in that auxillary feature of the Hall of Fame (the Ford C Frick Award for writers and broadcasters) with him?

Harold Reynolds

America is a land of second chances. From 1983 to 1994, Harold Reynolds wasn't an offensive threat at all. His 21 home runs from the second sack weren't anything to write home about. Hell, Ryne Sandberg had more home runs in a season during 6 of his years in the pros than Reynolds had total, and considering that he was the new face of second base (before Utley, Cano, and Soriano showed just how much power one could have from that position), Mr. Reynolds was just rapidly decelerating into career ending lack of productivity. All the same, he did have 60 stolen bases in his best year, but as a whole, he was what he was - average and his batting average of .258 for a career proved just that.
Nevertheless, he became a face for baseball because he went on to be a baseball guy for ESPN Baseball Tonight, and in that, he was always knowledgeable and interesting. However, after nearly a decade, he was canned from ESPN for hugging a female intern, which was considered offensive and sexual harassment when 3 weeks later, she said something about the hug and the dinner afterward. Maybe it was because she was white and he was black. Maybe he didn't return her further advances or maybe she just didn't hit it off with him. Either way, ESPN was not happy.
Later that year, he filed suit and won against his former network in that they settled the money he had asked for, and eventually, he went his way until MLBTV picked him up, which is unlike Steve Phillips, also an ESPN guy canned for issues that he had while being in a bizarre love triangle (cue New Order). There began the 3rd chance for Mr. Reynolds.
Now, Reynolds is on the air daily with Billy Ripken (the least of the Ripkens), Dan Plesac, and Mitch "Wild Thing" Williams (getting another second chance for himself after becoming Joe Carter's monkey boy and the most hated figure in Philadelphia history this side of JD Drew and Santa Claus). Together, they're disseminating what can only be described as "porn" since the constant baseball images on MLBTV are not only addictive and a guilty pleasure when I should be working or being productive on my days off, but a constant opportunity to gawk at the money shot home runs and defensive gems. I get to skip to the best parts of the greatest arguments, relive the memories past of glory that is missing from my life in this cold, nasty winter as I wait for life to come back to a former glory. Somehow, the images of the past and a past never seen have become my substitute for a daily life.
Not that I'm complaining. The countdowns are incredible and the Bob Costas interviews are enlightening me to all that is the grandeur of baseball. While they play the old Ken Burns Baseball stuff (I have this on DVD - it's the Vivid Entertainment of baseball), they haven't gotten to the new stuff yet. Someday, I'm sure they will, and I'll be able to record it rather than having to pay for the DVD just yet. On really good days, there are things on there like the entire game of Bill Mazeroski's home run to beat the Yankees and make Mickey and Roger cry.
If only MLBTV reached out to the world with their history (through Youtube), there would be a generation of baseball converts, but unfortunately, the already converted will be the only ones to relish in this greatness of a past world that can no longer be - at least until baseball becomes a game instead of a business.
Nevertheless, the hot stove is always burning - at least until my wife gets home and we watch "acceptable" television together.