tonytalkssports My Take on Sports, particularly the Yankees, Maple Leafs and Browns

Where Have You Gone Phil Rizzuto??

All of us remember the iconic line in Simon & Garfunkel's hit song, Mrs. Robinson: "Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio our nation turns its lonely eyes to you." Well, Yankee fans who are over the age of 35 are now asking the question: "Where have you gone Phil Rizzuto Yankee nation turns its lonely eyes to you." Besides his mindless self-promotion, Kay is flat out terrible. Last night, Joe Girardi was coming to take out Bartolo Colon and Kay proclaims that he's bringing in the left-hander Boone Logan. However, it was clear on the TV screen that he was motioning for a righthander which happened to be Cory Wade.

Over the weekend in Minnesota there were numerous faux pax on the part of Kay. Bob Raissman, Sports TV critic for the Daily News, refers to Kay as Beavis. I love that so from now on we'll refer to him as the big headed goofy 90's cartoon character.

Monday was an off day for the Yanks so I had the opportunity to watch Ron Guidry's 18 strikeout game against the Angels back in 1978. Besides bringing some great memories back (I remember watching the game outside up on my parents porch), what a pleasure hearing Frank Messer, Bill White, Fran Healey and the incomparable Phil Rizzuto broadcast the game. There wasn't any stupid talk. No self-promotion. No mindless statistics. It was flat out baseball. What I also found enjoyable was how every 2nd or 3rd inning they would go over the out-of-town scoreboard. Not only would the scores be given but there would be a little bit of discussion about the teams involved. For example they gave a White Sox score and talked about how the AL West was really tightening up. It was classic Rizzuto who boldly predicted in the 8th inning that Guidry would break the most strikeouts in a game record. (He fell short)

Rizzuto, while considered a homer, knew his baseball and was very entertaining. He also called it the way he saw it, not afraid to criticize when necessary. It was really great to remember what Yankee baseball used to be on TV. When the Yankees were recently in KC, Bob Lorenz was doing the play-by-play as I'm sure Beavis had commitments with 1050 ESPN Radio (as he likes to remind us). I thought Lorenz was great. There was no self-promoting. A broadcast team of Lorenz, Singleton and any one of the ex-Yankees would be perfect.

Some may say that part of the problem is that Beavis is not an ex-player. But in the 70's foursome, Frank Messer never played the game yet he was a professional broadcaster. He knew the game. He had previously broadcasted for the Baltimore Orioles. There are many good baseball broadcasters who are not former ball players. Dwayne Staats who does the Tampa Bay Rays games is a classic example. He knows the game, has a great voice and there is no nonsense. And by the way, he used to do Yankee games.

Unfortunately, Beavis has probably kissed a lot of Yankee behind so that we are stuck with him. It's rather sad that the biggest team in the biggest city in the country is stuck with such a terrible play-by-play guy. FIRE! FIRE! FIRE! Ughhhh.