I Dislike Your Favorite Team

I don't often watch baseball on WGN. I'm busy watching the Twins on Fox Sports North, which features Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven (who of course should be the Mother Fucking Hall of Fame already).

And you know, Fox Sports North is more area specific than it sounds. I don't get Brewers game on my version of it. I get only Twins game. Dick & Bert (who after years of working together have found a pretty perfect interplay, that makes me laugh almost against my will) work essentially one market, Minnesota and locales westward. I'm guessing Dick and Bert reach into Twins enclaves in the beautiful but rightfully underpopulated Dakotas.

WGN reaches the entire nation. For most cable subscribers, of course, WGN reaches them against their will, but still, it reaches them.

Minnesota is a smaller market, more provincial, and there are maybe a handful of great players that people outside of Minnesota would consider Twins. Blyleven is probably one of them, along with fellow Twins pitchers of legend or love, like Radke, Viola, and Jack Morris. When he's having friendly conversations in the booth, Bert will refer to his ring, especially when dissing the 87 Cardinals, like he did recently when Ozzie Smith paid a visit to the booth, but he does not refer to the current crop of Twins as "We".

The WGN guys do this constantly. They do it on their broadcast. Hell, they do it on their blog. Here' s quote from Darrin Jackson:

As we look at things right now, I don't think we should worry about the Tigers any more given the major deficit we face. The Sox just have not played anywhere close to the level of baseball they have consistently through this year.

Hey, Darrin, you aren't on the team!

Go ahead, and listen to a WGN White Sox broadcast. It reminds me, in terms of homer-ism, in sound quality, in lack of professionalism, to be equivalent to a basic cable channel in the deep south following a favorite son through a Pro-Am Bass Fishing Tournament. Hey, dumbasses, you are a National Broadcast!

It makes the TBS/Braves conglomerate announcing team sound like Einstein and Madame Curie, if they had dedicated their brain power to calling The Braves.

That said, the Twins Broadcasting team has managed a level of fan friendly commentary, small market fun, and still manage to be professional.

While Bert may take pains to circle fans in the stadium who are holding up "Circle Me, Bert" signs, he'll very, very rarely refer to the Twins as "We". He'll say "The Twins". As a broadcaster fucking should.

And sure, Bert is known for somewhat questionable remarks. But that's part of the fun, like tonight, when sideline Ron Coomer referred to Justin Tyner's weak but well positioned base hits as Duck Farts, quoting Bert, according to Coomer. (Bert told him, "Hey, you can't say that on TV!")

(The fact that wikipedia has a whole article on questionable remarks by Bert but not a single entry on Kevin Harlan's questionable remarks when he was the play by play guy for the Timberwolves highlights the problems with Wikipedia).

But my central point is this--Dick Bremer and Bert Blyleven, though it took awhile, have got a great, funny rapport, and you'll know they are covering the Twins, and not whoever the Twins are playing, but you'd never think they were fans of, or getting paid by, the Twins. It is flat-out impossible to think anything but the opposite whilst listening to the amateur show that WGN puts on during White Sox games.

The White Sox should be embarrassed. Fucking World Champs, getting covered by two guys who won a contest. That's what it sounds like, every time they are on TV.