very, very boring broadcast.  No life or excitement.  I hope the rest of the playoffs are much better.

Unfortunately, I don't expect wonderful things from TBS this fall, simply because this is their first time with this kind of responsibility.  I think they're bound to come up a little short.  

were horrible.  i was watching the game with a friend and after a couple innings we couldnt even tell if they had said anything.  they obviously had been talking, but just mindless wandering conversations.  its BS how just the NL gets screwed with this tbs crap.

........disagree with much of this.

First of all, this had to be a "rush job" by TBS.  They had no way of knowing this game was going to take place until the 11th hour, so the fact they were able to get up and running so quickly was, to my way of thinking, pretty good.

This might explain the limited camera angles.  It could very well be they could only get a few video teams in place under the circumstances.

I have no problem with Joe Simpson.  He knows the game and its players well.  Maybe I'm comfortable with him because I watch Braves games on TBS with some regularity.  The play-by-play guy was a bit weak, but he seemed to improve as the game progressed.  Not a good showing for him (whatever his name), but Simpson is a pro.

And after Tim McClelland blows the call at the plate, what would you have Johnson/Ripken do?  They can't change the outcome with their remarks and I think they laid it out for fans to draw their own conclusions.  

Plus, there were several times between innings that TBS switched to the studio and played NO COMMERCIALS during the break.  Gee, how refreshing!!  I'd rather listed to Ernie and Cal than watch another Bud Light bit.  

I'd give them a B- overall, which under the tight timeline, is not bad.

If one wants to point to corporate baseball there is your example, the umpire's initial reaction was to allow the play to continue, but in obvious afterthought called the play safe before Barrett made the tag.

The problem with the ump was that there was going to be replays. Afterward a seemingly shocked Rifken and TBS toadie attempted to overlook it and to get into the celebration but no matter the matza ball is on the ground for all to see.

ESPN later also in seemingly shock said "I don't know about this call", if that is not 'corporate speak'  than I am a monkey's uncle. There eventually emerged three angles of the play, the overview, down the line and behind the plate. Why the call, to get the game over with, it was 10:30 or so in CO, 12:30 on the East Coast....but it only would have been 2 outs.

It was a great play by Barrett, classic block, but I believe this will poison the Rockies...Funny how gift calls poison a team's momentum, inside they know they might not belong. That said I am happy it is the Rockies and Phillies, they will go 5 games, where out their respective pitching staffs and be worn out for the next series bashing the ball and scoring runs.

If I were the respective managers I would want 13 pitchers for they both have enough fire power in their lineups anyway.

They should have had more cameras but I can attribute that to the short amount of time they had to set the game up. Further, this was their first national game and they likely have been allocating a ton of their resources to doing the 4 LDS games. A bad reason, perhaps.

As for the announcer complaints, for how many years have we been wanting to get rid of the McCarvers and Morgans? Finally there is a network who is going with people like Steve Stone, Don Simpson, and other local flavors that are known for being excellent announcers. I'm glad about this and I'd much rather hear Dick Stockton and Ron Darling do Cub games over Chris Berman and Dusty Baker.

I wasn't a big fan of the studio show w/ Cal, but I do believe that the TBS product will get better.

DmL

The only thing I agree with is the poor job in the studio. Thats was boring, and lackluster. Ripken was not as good as I thought he would be. Other than that, I think they did fine. I don't watch the games to see special camera angles or anything like that. I watch them for the game itself, and the players take care of that. I think we're being too harsh. It was clear from just ONE camera angle he was out, why do we need six more telling us the same thing? The times when they did not go to a commercial break was TERRIFIC. Maybe its me, but I don't pay the most attention to the announcers, I'm too into the game. And last nights game was a great game, that was easy to get into. An "F" for TBS is way, way too harsh.  I just think too many people put too much stock in the presentation rather than the game itself. And if we do want a nice presentaion, I think the hitters stats for the night were presented better than the average "1-2 2B RBI". The stat line looked like the scorebook with the hits beinng shown. I did like that.

to moderate debates between Magic Johnson and Charles Barkley during an NBA broadcast than to have an ongoing studio conversation with Cal Ripken at various times through the game.

The whole broadcast was flat - this is what exclusivity buys you folks - Thank you Bud Selig.

And I haven't even mentioned shutting out 15% of the national market with a cable-only product, which means my diehard Cubs fan aunt back in Chicago won't be able to watch the games on WGN because she doesn't have cable and the games are on too late in the day for her to come over to my brothers place in Naperville to watch. This is what pisses me off the most about TBS.

There was no McCarver or Joe Buck.  There were no sound effects when the graphics changed.  There were no promos for Fox shows.  There was the scorecard stat line which I love.  They showed the game and that's all they did.  As DML pointed out this was most likely not their full complement of cameras since this was a one game playoff.  They were infinitely better than Fox.

i was thinking very much the same things about last nights broadcast. flat out horrid. were in the age of hdtv etc and tbs doesnt look good for a 90s style broadcast. i hate fox and damn sure hate sunday night baseball on espn but i would take either over this crap. bad enough you got playoff games starting at 9:07 pm at night. for the life of me i cant understand that. mlb playoffs,nba playoffs,football etc. are what sports are all about. doenst seem like their treated like their on the big stage to me.

Of the tele-cast.

First of all, the commercial breaks where held to a minimum, the HD presentation was excellent, and I think the game itself was boring in the middle innings say 7 to 12th inning or so.

I like the low key approach and its a helluva lot better then Joe Morgan.

But I have to tell you all, I love the sound effects that fox and CSN does. I think its awesome.

But none the less TBS did an excellent job especially with Cal and Erine in the studio.

A- TBS!

they were better than FOX too.  Not without problems (as some have pointed out) but not terrible.  And they lacked the normal FOX obnoxiousness.  Simpson was dull, but I'll take dull over obnoxious.  (And be aware that this was the fourth broadcast team.  The Red Sox, Yankees and Cubs get teams 1 through 3.)

They decided the story was the Rockies miraculous comeback, not the controversy at the plate.   Can you imagine if that was the Cubs who scored on that play and the announcers, instead of covering the on-field celebrations, spent the next fifteen minutes talking about the last play?  People around here would hit the roof.

I think they should have shown the last play a few more times.  But they did need to cover the celebrations on the field.

I don't think the home run call was blown.  I think they pretty clearly showed it wasn't a home run.  It hit that lip on the railing and bounced back.

I especially liked that they went to studio rather than commercial a couple of times between innings.  That might be a product of not having a lot of time to sell commercials, but they could have just shown the ones they had over and over. (Like WGN does.)  Let's hope they keep that up in the LDS.

It wasn't without problems, but I'd give it a B-/C+.  Not once did they break away from the action to interview an actor (in character) from a Budweiser commercial, as FOX has been known to do.

It wasn't a failure.  

but then, what isn't?

Frankly, I'd prefer it to be on WGN, with a simulcast on WGN-AM and have BOTH WGN broadcasting teams in the TV booth.  But that's just me.

Assuming the lag isn't too bad, I'll probably put my radio under the TV, hit mute, and listen to the radio commentary anyway.

Also:

1. It wasn't a home-run, it bounced off the fence
   
2. He was definitely out at the plate
   
3. The Padres got robbed
   
4. The umpiring has indeed been terrible
   
5. It doesn't matter, we'll beat the Rockies in the second round.

commercial breaks?

TBS Sales couldn't sell the time, that's why.
That's possibly why this broadcast was done on the cheap, harkening back to the 1980's style production values.

I understand that we have bashed others in the past...but this is another matter. Fox may have too many bells/whistles, but you can count on a well-produced 'cast. Most of of our comments have centered on the talk of the announcers. I do not remember ONE diary about 'bad production values.'
The talent was bad, but the guys in the truck -- were terrible, down the line.

However, production-wise, Comcast Chicago, FSN West/LA/WGN, and others doing baseball on a local basis would have surpassed the junk TBS threw at us last night.

nobody has refuted the fact that TNT pretty much does/says whatever they want on NBA telecasts. I contend Johnson/Ripkin didn't want to critcize anybody, on Game 1 of MLB coverage.

And, nice suit on their field reporter. Did he get that at Pimps R Us?

I'm sorry, this was a minor league production.

http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2007/10/yeah-extra-p-im-going-to-need-you-to-go.html

http://www.baltimoresun.com/sports/bal-sp.frager28sep28,0,6190292.column?coll=bal_sports_util

regardless of what kind of presentation it is. I think TBS did a great job for an otherwise boring matchup save for the first 4 innings and the ending.

Also did anyone else think Peavy looked really bad last night?

He was the play by play announcer last night. Orsillo calls the Red Sox games on NESN. His New England accent was evident, though he is a graduate of Northwestern University. He sounds boring to me. Orsillo's bio.

Here in Puerto Rico, where I live, Bud Selig outdid himself and TBS was blacked out during the broadcast. Unfortunately, the game wasn't showed on TV anywhere else and now they have the fans up in arms, the cable companies are trying to appease them and the Legislature is threatening to start an investigation. I called MLB in NY to complain this morning and they told me they are going to show the Division Series in PR, though I still don't know in which channel. At least I saw the game on MLB.TV but most people are not subscribed to that.

Apparently, greedy MLBud and his cronies sold the broadcast rights to PR separately but no one bought the rights to last night's game. TBS didn't buy them, either (they don't care about their viewers here but they charge full price to the local cable systems).

This is all too common every postseason in Puerto Rico. Last year, MLB offices had to intervene because a certain company bought the rights to the Division Series but couldn't buy time in a local station to broadcast the games. The company that bought the rights had a huge debt with the TV station so the TV station refused to sell them additional broadcast time. Tired of all the local complaints, MLB ended up letting us watch on ESPN the games that were not broadcast on the local station.

There's a nice amount of angst in this market right now. And most of it is pointed at -- (wait for it) Trevor Hoffman! "Time To Retire!" He's Through!"

Sound familiar? There is more griping and complaining on talk shows and 'letters to the editor' than usual, so that's good -- more people actually care. Another line of thought is -- yeah, you got Bradley (nobody seems to be mad about his meltdown, the umpire is getting all the blame here, Bradley is skating on this issue) but, "if you spent some money for ONE MORE BAT...maybe you wouldn't  need Brady Clark and that other loser from the Astros who tried to run over Prince Fielder in Saturday's game!"

What is compounding this, at this unique moment in SD sports is that the Chargers, expected to dance to the Super Bowl, are UNexpectedly awful. (The Chargers are 1 TD pass from Tomlinson in Game 1 against the Bears from being 0-4)

I'm hearing, and reading....

"San Diego Sports is cursed!"

"All we've had to cheer about in the last 25 years is a home run by Steve Garvey!"

Guess he forgot about the 1998 World Series. Nobody was going to beat the Yankees that year.
And, those that DO remember are placing retroactive blame for losing on...Hoffman. The most overbearing are calling for Hoffman to be 'replaced' by Heath Bell, or asking for a 'trade' or hoping he'll 'retire.'

Perhaps "Hell's Bells" will be placed into the ashcan of history at Petco Park next year, for as one writer at gaslamp ball said...."500 worthless saves."

Whatta maroon....