How Much Does Your Hometeam MLB Announcer Talk?

Thursday, September 03, 2009

The Wall Street Journal conducted a fascinating, yet highly tedious, study on Major League Baseball announcers recently. Writer David Biderman, watched every team's home broadcast, and for a half inning he tallied how many words each announcer spoke. After that he average that out to words per minute to come up with your winners....or losers depending on how you look at it....

Vin Scully (Dodgers)- 143.51
Dan McLaughlin (Cardinals)- 109.93
Bob Carpenter (Nationals)- 102.33
George Grande (Reds)- 102.06
Daron Sutton (Dbacks)- 100.36
Ryan Lefebvre (Royals)- 96.71
Brian Anderson (Brewers)- 96.06
Dick Bremer (Twins)- 94.81
Bill Brown (Astros)- 89.11
Dave Niehaus (Mariners)- 84.14
Tom McCarthy (Phillies)- 82.97
Don Orsillo (Red Sox)- 81.73
Tim Neverett (Pirates)- 81.55
Chip Caray (Braves)- 78.70
Drew Goodman (Rockies)- 78.51
Rich Waltz (Marlins)- 78.08
Mario Impemba (Tigers)- 75.39
Michael Kay (Yankees)- 73.40
Gary Cohen (Mets)- 73.04
Matt Underwood (Indians)- 72.02
Len Kasper (Cubs)- 71.5
Ken Harrelson (White Sox)- 70.98
Josh Lewin (Rangers)- 70.57
Dewayne Staats (Rays)- 69.69
Steve Physioc (Angels)- 68.26
Gary Thorne (Orioles)- 66.97
Glen Kuiper (Athletics)- 65.00
Jamie Campbell (Blue Jays)- 62.66
Mark Neely (Padres)- 61.64
Duane Kuiper (Giants)- 55.44
Obviously there are a handful of factors that go into this number, but the main one is how much each PbPer's color analyst talks. Vin Scully obviously doesn't have one at all, which is why he's at the top, but the rest of this sort of makes sense. At least it does in my market, where Gary Thorne's analyst (Jim Palmer), doesn't ever shut up.

Meet Baseball's Chattiest TV Announcers (Wall Strett Journal)

Posted by Awful Announcing at 11:41 AM

8 Comments:

I thought Twins avoided contraction.

Unknown said...
Sep 3, 2009, 11:54:00 AM  

Michael Kay still sucks.

GMoney said...
Sep 3, 2009, 11:57:00 AM  

That's why I love Duane Kuiper. He keeps his mouth shut.

49er16 said...
Sep 3, 2009, 1:22:00 PM  

Where can I pick up a Wall Strett Journal?

Unknown said...
Sep 3, 2009, 1:45:00 PM  

And 84 of Vin Scully's 143.51 words per minute are devoted to a cute 5-year old Dodger fan falling asleep in his nachos that the cameraman cut to.

Just kidding, Vinny, we love you. Even when you talk about children too much. Even during those terrible years when Jeff Kent and Matt Kemp caused you so many troubles. I can't believe he's retiring after next year. They need to rename Dodger Stadium after him.

Big Worm said...
Sep 4, 2009, 4:45:00 AM  

I would have thought Niehaus would have been lower because I've heard a lot of dead-air when he's announcing. Might have depended on how fast the pitchers in that inning worked. Although if it was in the third inning, there's that Aflac trivia question he's got to deal with.

Kevin said...
Sep 4, 2009, 9:12:00 PM  

Or I now call that storied newspaper, The Murdoch Street Journal, because it now attacks from the right.

JamesCraven said...
Sep 5, 2009, 10:59:00 AM  

He doesn't do the play-by-play (thankfully), but Red Sox post-game NESN hack Tom Caron is an unpleasant Tsunami of verbiage. He'll ask a question that takes a minute to get out of his mouth, and he then tramples on the person he asks the question of (which is usually Dennis Eckersley or Jim Rice). So the media hack steals the microphone from the professional baseball player. I knew sports media hacks were in love with themselves, but not to this extent.

Chris said...
Sep 6, 2009, 10:27:00 AM  

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