St. Louis Cardinals: Dan McLaughlin, play-by-play; Rick Horton, Jim Edmonds, color analyst
If you are a fan of vanilla ice cream, you probably like Cardinals telecasts.
McLaughlin is a fully competent telecaster. An area native, he’s respected enough to have regularly gotten the call to work weekend network games.
Horton, and Edmonds, both come across as professional analysts who – if you didn’t know better – you might be surprised to learn that they were ever jocks. Horton, of course, had a seven-season career as a reliever on two Cardinal division champions, while Edmonds was a four-time MLB All Star across a 17-season career.
They function articulately as a team in the same way the management of IBM probably functions. It is a booth without weaknesses.
But it is also a booth without particular strengths unless you count fealty to the Cardinals, usually a given among home TV booths. While Horton and Edmonds routinely hit the expected color points – Edmonds is particularly good at analyzing defense – they will rarely offer much in the way of game analysis that the regular fan hasn’t heard before.
It’s the same story on most of the other considerations. Humor? Cardinals telecasts will never be mistaken for a laughfest. Rapport? Just the requisite amount that binds all Redbird fans. Likeability? That’s not something they seem to strive to try for. Oratory? McLaughlin gives the solid professional performance you would expect.
In short, there’s nothing to criticize here, but nothing much to highly recommend, either. Vanilla.
Experience: 4
Likeability: 4
Knowledge: 5
Humor: 4
Rapport: 4
Oratory: 4
Total: 25