April showers in baseball

How’s it going, folks? Mizzou baseball has been in full swing, but not having a great season so far with a 15-11 record. The Tigers sit in last place in the Big 12 so far with a 2-4 record in conference. They’ve got a ton of freshmen, so the learning curve appears to be pretty high so far for them, while the bullpen has been very weak outside of closer Jeff Emens. I’ve been really impressed with 2 freshmen so far this year – 2b Eric Garcia, and outfielder Dane Opel. Opel is hitting a sterling .529 in conference, while Garcia made a huge impact in non-conference play – especially against Purdue where he homered twice. Garcia has struggled so far though in Big 12 play, hitting just .077. Hopefully he can keep the 2b job because I think he’s got some tremendous talent, and has shown himself to be a really solid defensive infielder too with just 2 errors in 19 games. Meanwhile, senior 1b Aaron Senne has been fantastic – .426/.464/.577 averages with 8 homers and 31 RBI. The Tigers teem with young talent on the mound too, as very-highly-touted freshman Eric Anderson has a 3.94 ERA with 24 Ks in 32 innings. He seems to have great stuff and just needs experience. The rest of the pitching staff has been average – lefty junior college transfer Jeff Scardino appears to have a solid hold on midweek starts while righty Nick Tepesch has been a bulldog on Saturdays, taking the ball every game and going deep, but he’s given up a lot of hits and homers. He’s got good stuff, and has kept his walks down, but still has a high WHIP – I’m curious to see where his season goes – he pitched 6 innings of shutout ball against North Dakota but  has struggled in Big 12 play. I’m not sure this team can make the NCAA tournament this year – I just don’t see it with the inconsistency and inexperience on this team coupled with the always-challenging Big 12 schedule. Certainly I’d love to see it happen, but a .500 finish for this team would be a success in my opinion.

On the PA announcing side, it’s gone pretty well. The athletics department asked me to PA the games at Busch Stadium against Illinois  in St. Louis and Kauffman Stadium against Kansas, so I’m pumped for the chance! I PA’d at Busch last year when Missouri played St. Louis University, and it was pretty wild. The sound system was incredibly powerful, which wasn’t too much of a surprise – what did surprise me was how strong the echo was throughout the stadium. It really emphasized to me how enormous a building it is compared to Taylor Stadium. Hopefully, the crowd will be better this year than it was last year, when it only drew about 1,500 people. I’m not sure how well Illinois baseball fans travel, but it’ll be fun regardless – and hopefully a better game than last year’s blowout win over SLU. As for Kauffman, that’s gonna be awesome – especially for an “exhibition” Border War baseball game. I’ll do my best to document it and get as many pictures and videos as possible!

My lowly Mets get started today too against the Florida Marlins – all I can hope for this season is a .500 finish. They’re going to stink this year!

PA guys in Big 12

I’ve been fortunate enough to watch enough Big 12 football in my career at Mizzou to hear most of the stadium PA announcers either in person or on TV. Here’s a quick list of how they stack up, in my boredom.

1) Randy Wright, Missouri: Of course he’s a huge homer and I’m totally biased towards him but he does an excellent job both feeding off the crowd and getting people fired up at football or basketball games. He rarely makes mistakes with players’ names/numbers and usually has pretty good phrasing for plays. I’ll give him and the Mizzou marketing people credit for coming up with the “First down, M-I-Z” – you can hear him around :15 in this:
2) Name unknown, Oklahoma State: This guy has an AWESOME voice. He uses a few quirks in his announcing – i.e. instead of the overused, cliche “That’s good for a [insert team name and wait for crowd to yell 1st down]” he says “Oklahoma State 1st down and ten”. He also doesn’t use the opposing team’s name – simply saying, for instance, on defense “3rd down and 3…for the visitor.” Definitely a fan. You can kind of hear him in this
3) Name unknown, Kansas: The state of Kansas is pretty good for PA guys. Like OSU, this guy has an great voice. I haven’t been to a game in Lawrence but having heard him in the background on TV and the radio, he doesn’t get too fired up and lets his inflection carry the enthusiasm, instead of yelling or sounding crazy. It sounds like he avoids cliches and sticks to the basics, and, gets them right. I’m guessing he’s an old-school guy and he does a good job.
4) Name unknown, Kansas State: Also has a great voice, but uses too many cliches/overused phrases to try and fire up the crowd i.e. “That’s another WILDCAT [pause while waiting for crowd to yell "First Down"]” I also noticed several crucial errors in identifying opposing players – for instance, identifying Aldon Smith as someone else, or completely missing Sean Weatherspoon for someone else. Not sure if you can hear him in this, but it’s worth a try.
Schools I have not heard: Texas, Texas Tech, Texas A&M, Baylor, Nebraska, Colorado. For the sake of this article, we’ll assume they fill slots 5-11 as I leave the schools below out for a reason.
11) Name unknown, Oklahoma: Not a very good voice, occasionally to the point of irritation for listeners and fans. His voice was monotone and lacking depth. He had decent form and phrasing, but I do recall him saying Chase “Daniels” instead of Daniel, a crucial mistake for any announcer’s credibility. I don’t mean this in a bad way, but he sounded like a less enthusiastic Alex Anthony (New York Mets’ PA announcer)
12) Name unknown, Iowa State: Probably the worst PA guy I’ve heard call a football game at any level. While it could be a symptom of a bad sound system, the guy sounded like he was literally screaming into the microphone. To make matters worse, he used every cliche in the book – from “THAT’S ANOTHER CYCLONNNNNNNNNNNNEEEE FIRST DOWN!!!!!!!!!!!!” again, literally SCREAMING into the microphone, while on defensive 3rd downs, shouting “IT’S 3RD DOWN AND ___ MAKE SOME NOISE!!!!!!” Overall, very irritating – and it’s unforgivable to announce like that if you don’t have the voice for it. You can kind of get a sense of this guy from this: