A word about TBS's coverage of the playoffs

After years of enduring Fox's awful coverage, it's nice to have a network that cares about the game broadcasting the playoffs. What's bad about Fox:

YANKEES YANKEES YANKEES
Always in primetime, the rest of the schedule be damned. Yesterday we would have had the Philly-Colorado game at 1 PM EST, the Cubs-Arizona game at 4:30 PM EST, and then the Yankees-Cleveland game at 8:30 EST. No question about it. Everyone else was forced to play day games to accomodate Fox's network schedule and their love of having the Yankees in primetime. And since Fox paid the most money, they jerked around the entire playoff schedule just to have it.

Pompous, egotistical, pretentious announcers
Joe Buck is of course the king of it all. I actively avoid NFL games that he does play-by-play for, and he's going to drive me away from MLB games this fall. The thing is, the entire network is made up of those guys. Thom Brennaman is just as bad, except he's not jammed down our throats during the World Series so we don't hate him as much. These guys take any storyline and hammer it until it's not just dead, it's taken another physical form. Why? Because everyone cares more about what they think about some topic than what's going on on the field, or so they think.

Production
To be fair, Fox some very nice things. For example, they have tons of cameras so we get replays from every angle. However, the negatives are just too much to overcome. From their stupid graphics that make noise like Transformers, to that baseball (named Spitball or whatever) who is supposed to teach kids about the game (and, as an aside, I knew more about the game when I was 8 than that stupid little ball knows), to their insane habit of showing close-ups of everyone's face between plays, I can't take it any more. Just show the damn game!

Which is exactly what TBS does.

Rather than be slave to primetime, they basically turn over their whole programming day to games, making them as good for the fan as possible. Not having noon games is a great start, and their schedule every day is 3 PM EST, 6:30 PM EST, 10 PM EST. Perfect. I can imagine New Yorkers complaining about not getting hom from work in time to watch first pitch. To that I say, try being a fan of every other team! I'm glad they are being brought down a notch.

When I watched the Padres-Rockies game Monday night, I had no idea who the announcers were, and it was GREAT. They just called the game. Even their A-team (or so I presume) of Chip Caray, Bob Brenly, and Tony Gwynn is good compared to Fox. I guess the only way I would ever appreciate Caray and his Roger Radio impression is compare him to Buck, and it worked! Nobody was blathering on about the Cubs' "curse" or any of that garbage.

The production is similarly understated. I really like the graphic they show of each hitter's plate appearances in the game. It's in the style of a scorebook, by inning.

Overall, it's almost as if TBS made a conscious decision to have their broadcasts do none of the things everyone hates about Fox's. Keep it up, guys!