Monday, September 19, 2011

A new voice heard from

Josh Whetzel
As you probably know, John Gordon is hanging up the microphone after this season.

Fine by me; I won't be writing any glowing farewells. It's no secret that I have for years regarded the Twins radio broadcasts as borderline incompetent, and I've generally blamed Gordon as the lead figure on those broadcasts. That may be an unfair assessment — it's quite possible that with the amount of promo material foisted on the broadcasters Vin Scully would be hard pressed to pay attention to the game — but that's my opinion. I like knowing where the baserunners are, just where that drive to "left-right-center field" went and even if it was caught.  Gordon and Gladden don't always bother with such details.

Today a fellow named Josh Whetzel was doing the game from New York with Gordon. Whetzel has been doing the broadcasts for the Rochester Red Wings for nine years, and he has a pretty good reputation.

Having Whetzel fill in for Gladden for this one-game trip to Yankee Stadium probably saved somebody a bit of travel money, and gave Whetzel a real-life tryout for the major league job.

He was easy to listen to, spoke in complete sentences, told us listeners what happened and didn't impose some goofy schick. Me like. I hope he gets the full-time gig next year.

1 comment:

  1. I thought he was good as well but for me the voice needs to be as good as the play calling (this might be a prodcut of listening to lots of Herb Carneal, Ray Christenson and Garrison Keillor as a kid). His voice, like Attabery, is a little too high pitched and schticky for me (think Mike Grimm).

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