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Rating the TV booths: The AL West

By Bill Felber

MESA, AZ - MARCH 8: Broadcaster Glen Kuiper Jr. of the Oakland Athletics works from the pressbox during the game against the Chicago White Sox at Hohokam Stadium on March 8, 2015 in Mesa, Arizona. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/Oakland Athletics/Getty Images)
MESA, AZ - MARCH 8: Broadcaster Glen Kuiper Jr. of the Oakland Athletics works from the pressbox during the game against the Chicago White Sox at Hohokam Stadium on March 8, 2015 in Mesa, Arizona. (Photo by Michael Zagaris/Oakland Athletics/Getty Images) /
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The two best MLB play-by-play announcers in a baseball booth both work in the Bay Area and share the same parents and family name: Kuiper.

Among AL West TV crews, the team in Oakland is superior. That’s saying something, because there is not a genuinely poor booth within the division.

Rating the MLB television broadcasters – the AL West

Oakland’s booth wins out over Seattle’s because it is deeper, featuring not just Glen Kuiper but two superb color analysts in Ray Fosse and Dallas Braden.

Play-by-play and color analysts are important because the vast majority of baseball fans enjoy the sport through the eyes and lips of their favorite team’s announcing crew. Although this is particularly true in a Covid-driven era of limited in-stadium attendance, it’s really been substantially so since widespread access to televised games became available anywhere and any time through various media.

But that in turn means that a lot of the buzz we draw from a game hinges on the skill, passion, knowledge and oratorical talents of each team’s telecasters. As in any field, some are better than others.

In the series that enters its fifth installment here, each MLB team’s primary TV crew is rated based on six criteria that are important to fan enjoyment of a game. The criteria are:

1.       Experience: How deep and constant is the attachment between the announcing crew and the team?

2.       Likeability: Does the announcing crew genuinely come across as people a fan might enjoy spending an afternoon or evening with?

3.       Knowledge: This criterion does not require description.

4.       Humor: Does the announcing crew make an appropriate effort to entertain without being clownish?

5.       Rapport: Do members of the announcing crew seem to get along easily with one another?

6.       Oratory: Do members of the announcing crew evince a comfort level with proper techniques of English language delivery?

Focusing only on TV announcing crews – they’re the ones most readily available on more than a regional basis – the evaluation considers the main play-by-play announcer plus the principal color commentators or, if you prefer, expert analysts.

This analysis specifically does not consider pre-game or post-game personalities, or in-stadium interviewers.

We’re going to approach the task in six parts, one installment for each division. Today’s subject is the AL West. Announcing teams can receive a max score of five points in each category: with six categories that makes 30 points a perfect score.

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