The media professionals who describe and discuss baseball games and baseball players on radio and television are a diverse and sundry lot. Some color commentators are former players from the 1960s and 1970s, while others are from the 1980s or 1990s. Amongst play by play guys, some are the fathers of fellow play by play guys, while others are their sons. Nevertheless, amongst this variety, much wisdom of the game has been discovered and preserved.
Here are the things that baseball broadcasters like:
- Guys who show up to work every day.
- Players who spent their entire career with one team. (Which makes sense because 99% of media folks have never changed jobs.)
- Sliding and diving, in any context.
- Being skeptical of pitch counts.
- Matchup stats. The smaller and more meaningless, the better.
- Defense-first shortstops and catchers.
- Making ham-handed eye-winking comments about players and steroids. Any chance to say, "well he certainly looks/looked different that spring" will not be passed up.
- Letting the viewers know just how much fouling a ball off of your foot hurts. Trust them, it hurts.