The Reds Are On The Radio

So... the Reds aren't very good. But I'm not willing to eat too much crow just yet, as I'm still choosing to consume the Kool Aid. Maybe I'm a fool, but I still have hope. This team is not the worst team in baseball... I mean, according to the standings, they are... but... they... might not be soon?

Anyway, I love baseball on the radio, I listen to at least some of almost every game on 700, so naturally I'm following the latest soap opera to hit the Reds. I like the fact that the Reds' announcers will "tell it like it is" instead of candy-coating it when things don't go well. If the team is consistantly losing and playing fundamentally poor defense and running the bases without using their brains, I don't need to hear the announcers tell me how sunny and happy everything is.

On the other hand, having freedom of speech may be a right of these announcers, but with that right comes responsibility. These guys are the franchise's voice to the fans, and their words and tone carry a LOT of weight. Personally, I think our beloved radio crew, specifically Marty and Jeff, can be obnoxiously negative. And they seem to be a little too dramatic about it. Maybe it's just me. I want to hear the truth, but I don't want my announcers to depress me any further than I already get by rooting for a currently-bad team.

One of my messageboard friends said it much more eloquently:

Seriously, I can't listen to them. All they do is b****. You aren't f***ing paid to b**** and complain. You are paid to tell me what is going on in the game that I can't watch. I don't give two sh**s about what your dumb*** thinks should happen, I want to know what the f*** is happening. Since they hardly ever do that, I haven't listened on the radio for more than 5 minutes of any game all year.

They turn the fan base against the team. Yeah, we suck. So what. Telling the fan base we suck, our players suck, they whine too much, they can't do this and won't do that.... that doesn't do your product any good at all. It turns casual fans against players based on what some old bastard past his prime going through menopause has to say about him because he is bitter as hell. F*** that. I really wish they would clean house. Maybe I could deal with listening to a Reds game on the radio again.