Ross Porter, Please Come Home

Last night, around 9:00 as the fireworks boomed in the not so distant distance, Molly the Collie, quaking and quivering, nuzzled her extremely long snout into my armpit as we lay on the bed watching the Twilight Zone marathon. She was a little frightened. Finally, I took her out to the front of the house where we could see the fireworks in the Southern sky and she wasn't so scared anymore as much as annoyed. Kind of how I feel every time I have to listen to Charlie Steiner do a Dodger broadcast.

Now, don't get me wrong. Charlie seems like a fine man and I know he regards this as his dream job. Problem is... he's not good at it. I want him so much to be good at it but he's just not and, unfortunately for all of us, there are 162 games in a season and Vinny is only around for home games and games in the Western US. Obviously, like every sane mind in the nation, baseball fan or not, I revere Scully. I've learned to live with Rick Monday over the years, and I even like Jerry Reuss and Psycho Steve Lyons. Steiner, on the other hand, irritates me with alarming frequency and efficacy. He just can't wait until the Dodgers play Houston so he can say, "Houston, we have a problem" twice a game during all four games in the series. Apollo 13, from which that phrase was reintroduced to the American public came out 13 years ago! Charlie, it's not clever anymore. His incessant patter and pseudo intellect make me cringe. He's like the guy at the party who wants so badly to be accepted, and you hope to god doesn't open his mouth and embarrass you in front of your friends. He simply doesn't command any authority like ESPN's Jon Miller or the much missed Ross Porter. When listening to the game on the radio, I won't really know what's happening until I can actually see it on TV because Charlie's instincts are so poor, he announces as if every fly ball is headed out of the park. Maybe if he took a page from Vinny during his famous Kirk Gibson home run call and just kept quiet. I'd have a better idea of what was going on simply listening to the fans' reactions than Steiner trying to tell me.

Who's the ass that let Ross Porter go, anyway? I loved that guy. Sure he was full of minutiae, but it was interesting minutiae. And he knew the game and he had great instincts. In fact, as far as baseball play by play is concerned, in this blogger's opinion, only Scully, Dick Enberg and Jack Buck were better. Maybe you can toss in the late great Curt Gowdy. How I miss Ross: "Dodgers up now three to two on the home run by Guerrero. We're in the 6th, one out, no one on and here's Herrera's first pitch to Sax... high for a ball. Sax is 5 for 14 in his career against the Venezuelan lefthander, Diego Hererra. Hererra only has one testicle - the next pitch is fouled off behind the Dodger dugout, one and two - the Dodgers' record against Hererra is three and one, and their record against Venezuelan lefthanders is 8 and 5 over the last 5 years... High fastball knocks Saxie off his feet for ball two, two and one the count. - However, the Dodgers record over the last five years against Venezuelan lefthanders with one testicle is 1 and 4... curveball and there's a line drive into left field for Sax's second hit of the night..."

We miss you, Ross.