A new voice of summer

Cory Provus inherits the lead radio job for the Twins.

The Twins are likely to make many moves this offseason. Few will be as important to the fans as the one they made Thursday, when Cory Provus was named to replace John Gordon as the lead radio announcer.

Provus has been with the Brewers for the past few years, and it's possible that I've heard a smidgen of his work, but if so it wasn't particularly memorable. But while I don't really know how he'll do in the Twins booth, I have to assume he'll be an improvement over Gordon's inattentiveness.

Tell me where the base runners wound up after the play, Cory — heck, tell me specifically if the ball was fair or foul — and we'll be fine.

Provus represents a major move for the organization because the broadcasters are a significant, perhaps primary, connection between the fans and the games, and because the Twins history suggests he's going to be around for decades, even generations. He's 33. He could be in the booth for the next 40 years or so.

The radio gig may not be as prominent was it was when Herb Carneal was in his prime, because far more games are on TV today then when I was becoming a fan, but it remains important, remains prestigious -- prestigious enough for Ryan Lefebvre, the lead TV guy in Kansas City, to consider the job. (As a newspaper guy, I was amused to see that the Star Tribune played a piece saying that Lefebvre was the leading candidate prominently on the sports front, but played a follow-up report that he wouldn't get the job inside.)

Herb and Halsey Hall fed the interest of the young me some 40 years ago, Halsey, Herb, Gordon -- these are the men who've led the radio crews, who've given voice to Minnesota summers. Now that role, or what remains of it with the rise of daily cable game broadcasts, falls to Provus.

Pic of the Week

Dan Gladden, motorcycle enthusiast, drove John Gordon
around Target Field before Wednesday's finale in a sidecar.
It was Gordon's final game as the Twins radio voice

I don't know: Is that joy on John Gordon's face, or abject terror?

News of the days: Morneau, Cuddyer, Liriano and radio ravings

Things going on while I'm writing exclusively about bullpen candidates:

• Justin Morneau is apparently ready to seek medical clearance to play in games. 
• Michael Cuddyer's hampered by a wart on his left foot that has so far defied attempts to disappear it. (A bit of back-and-forth about it suggests to me that Ron Gardenhire was told "it was ineffective" and heard "it was infected.")
• There are games on the radio -- if you can pull in 1500ESPN. Either the Twins Radio Network isn't carrying the broadcasts or KTOE (the Mankato station in that network) is taking a pass. For me, if I'm in the car I can hear the broadcasts, otherwise not. So my exposure to how John Gordon and Dan Gladden are handling the challenge posed by Tsuyoshi Nishioka has been limited. On Sunday, they appeared to be trying to avoid the Tsuyoshi part altogether. The game thread on Twinkie Town during Monday's game listed repeated creative pronunciations. This figures to be a running theme in 2011.
• There is a buzz linking Francisco Liriano to the Yankees. I have my doubts.

John Gordon's last season

It was already known that John Gordon was sharply cutting back on his broadcast schedule in the coming season. The veteran Twins radio announcer is to call 90 regular season games this year -- that's slightly more than half the team's games.

But now he's announced that this will be his final season, period.

I've been critical of his work for some time. A few years ago I ran, as part of my print column, a semi-regular feature dubbed The Gordon Files, in which I attempted to chronicle some of his inanities, such as informing listeners that "Carlos Santana" was scheduled to start a particular game. (Carlos Silva? Johan Santana? Or the guitarist?) I abandoned it for a variety of reasons, one of them being my own errors, and another being that it was seen in some corners as mean-spirited.

Which was never the intent. I have nothing against John Gordon; I'm sure he's a prince of a man and a hard worker. I have a problem with the quality of the work.

As a listener, I want to know where the baserunners ended up after a single. Gordon doesn't always tell us. (Nor does Dan Gladden; the two often seem locked in a conspiracy to keep the listeners ignorant of what's happening,) It irritated me last summer when Gordon told us that Jim Thome was scoring on a ball hit into the gap and Thome was thrown out about five seconds afterwards.

I know I would be a poor announcer myself. I would stutter and stammer and talk too fast and fail to enunciate clearly, because I do those things without a mic in my face. I would probably be too disorganized to keep up with the constant stream of promos that get in the way of describing the game.

But my own inability to throw a major-league level breaking ball doesn't mean I can't evaluate a pitcher and find him wanting. This is the major leagues, he holds a major-league job, and (my opinion) he doesn't do it on a major-league level.

Now his exit is in sight, and I will strive this season to stifle my complaints. And it's entirely possible that more rest will mean better broadcasts; it's been my observation that he's worse on day games after night games.

A couple of countdowns

Ernie Harwell, the legendary radio voice of the Detroit Tigers, revealed last week that he has an inoperable cancer. He's 91, and he's lived a rich and rewarded life, and from his public statements he's at peace with the reality that that life is nearly over.

Every once in a while somebody asks: Why are you so hard on John Gordon? Mind you, not everybody asks me that. Sometimes they ask my editor, with the hint that he tell me to knock it off.

And the answer, folks, is that I've heard Vin Scully broadcast baseball games, and I've heard Ernie Harwell. And Bob Uecker, and Bob Prince, and Harry Caray. Not game in, game out, night after night, but enough to know that the game can be described on the radio with grace and wit and style and accuracy. Herb Carneal — for one year an on-air partner of Harwell's — did it for decades, and Halsey Hall.

We Twins fans don't have that. Maybe it's not all Gordon's fault; possibly Scully himself couldn't do a Twins game smoothly with all the promo copy required of Gordo and Gladden. Maybe. But the promo copy doesn't mean they can't tell us where the baserunners are.

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The Twins tragic number (Twins losses and Tigers wins needed to eliminate Minnesota): 22.

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Poll results: On the question of which team will win the AL Central, we had 14 votes. Nine (64 percent) said Detroit; four (28 percent) said Minnesota; 1 (7 percent) said the White Sox.

New poll up

Radio, radio

I was stuck with the radio "description" of the early part of Tuesday's Twins-Royals fiasco. I really don't know which was worse: Nick Blackburn's pitching, or John Gordon-Dan Gladden in the booth.

Gladden's silly evaluation of Mike Jacobs (a true one-tool player — he hits an occasional long ball but can't run, field, throw or hit for average, plus he has lousy strike zone judgment, but Gladden likes him anyway and can't figure out why he's been relegated to part-time play) and Gladden-Gordon's joint misevaluation of the Marlins' home stadium (they think it's a bandbox, and it's actually one of the toughest home run parks in the National League) were bad enough. Ignorance on parade.

But in the second inning a real live professional tour golfer showed up, and as long as Hunter Mahan stuck around, whatever happened on the field was going to be classified information to their listeners.

Even after Mahan left — apparently to go distract the TV boys from their jobs — Gordo was so enthralled by the encounter that he called Delmon Young "Michael" and had Mitch Meier playing two outfield positions simultaneously for Kansas City.

I wish someone would hire Gordon to broadcast golf. It would be good for him — he clearly cares more about golf than about baseball — and it would be good for those of us who listen to the Twins on the radio.

Twins 3, A's 2, 10 innings (Tuesday bounceback)

AP game story here.

Box score here.

A deceptively good start for Anthony Swarzak. Four hits and two runs in seven innings — not bad. But the three walks (to just four strikeouts) isn't strong, and he wasn't consistently working ahead of hitters. The A's, despite their 14 runs on Monday, are a weak offensive club, and they made Swarzak look better than he pitched.

Joe Mauer banged out a pair of hits and scored the winning run.

Matt Guerrier was stellar in relief for the win. And after throwing 33 pitches Tuesday, I doubt Oakland's closer, Andrew Bailey, will be available for this afternoon's game.

The Twins had more chances than did the A's and barely took enough advantage. Minnesota was just 1 for 9 with runners in scoring position. But the Twins had the only extra-base hits (a double and two triples), all of which figured in the scoring.

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I critiqued Gardenhire's bullpen choices in some detail after the Monday fiasco. The game notes in the AP story linked to above noted that Brian Duensing and Bobby Keppel were unavailable on Tuesday.

No kidding.

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I spent much of the game driving back from Wisconsin listening to the radio and wishing I could take notes on John Gordon's slip-ups and nonsense.

Example: He was talking at one point about how difficult outfielders find the Oakland stadium. He mentioned the wind and the lack of clouds (high sky). Then he said: The bright sunshine is also a problem, especially during day games. Yeah. When the sun is a problem during night games, Gordo, we have a story.

Then there was his confusion between Oakland pitcher Dallas Braden and first baseman Daric Barton. I found myself wishing Oakland had somebody named Burton just to make it a complete mess. At one point Gordon had Barton pitching "14 quality saves this season." He mean Braden and quality starts.

Gordon's never really good, but he's far more mistake prone in day games after night games. Like Wednesday.

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Before I leave, here's an excellent breakdown (from Circling the Bases' Matthew Pouliot) of why umpire Mike Muchlinski blew the call at the plate for the last out of Monday's game.

Having brought up the topic again, I should say that that play wasn't the reason the Twins lost. If Cuddyer is called safe, of course, the game's tied, and maybe the Twins don't lose. But that game was lost because Nick Blackburn, Duensing and Keppel couldn't get outs. The Cuddyer play shouldn't have mattered.