Ramirez Fires Back at McCarver's "Despicable" Announcing

The McCarver-Ramirez wars continue, as Manny fires back:

Tim McCarver has been announcing World Series games since 1985, and he'll be assigned to the booth with Joe Buck for the 2008 NLCS, starting October 9. Manny Ramirez, the slugger who joined the Los Angeles Dodgers on August 1, is among those who have noticed.

"It's amazing--the dichotomy between how he calls games during the regular season, and how he tries to call games during the postseason," Ramirez said. "I mean, talk about dogging it in April of this year, when McCarver compared Phillies manager Charlie Manuel to Civil-War generals, and how Southern generals may have been underestimated. I mean, the only time when you hear a national sports broadcaster unleash non-sensical analogies like that is when he hasn't done the homework he should have done prior grabbing the mike and opening his piehole.

"Or consider one game in May 2008," Ramirez continued, when McCarver stoutly contended that [Alfonso] "Soriano should stay in the leadoff spot because that's what he's always done and if you drop him below the fifth spot in the order, you lose his speed." Exactly how does that help the Cubs, Tim, when he can't hit well enough to get on base? Speed is useless if you can't get on base often enough to make a difference, and if there's anything we proved in the NLDS, Soriano can't. Shoot, next you'll be telling me Juan Pierre is a viable leadoff hitter for the Dodgers, and you'll be having dinners with Ned Colletti."

Ramirez, and others, have pointed to McCarver's endless attempts to convey erudition by complicating the game, whch is stunning. Even more stunning is the juxtaposition of McCarver's prolonged announcing career with his pedestrian playing career, a much shorter duration which included a "grand slam single" after passing teammate on the basepaths after a home run negated one of his RBI.

In his last couple of games announcing Fox's Game of the Week, McCarver was said to have introduced some nuggets of insight here and there. But McCarver has been dogged by allegations that he is too quick with criticism of players, often unfounded, and commonly directly barbed for sheer shock value and publicity, rather than packaged with thoughtful analysis and measured opinion.

I'd rather have Manny being Manny than Tim being Tim.