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New Red Sox Announcer on WRKO

M

Mickey37

Guest
First exhibition game of the season, and I tuned in to WRKO for some of it. I find the new guy seems to know something about the game, but his voice lacks authority.

Joe Castiglione sounds like a father figure chaperoning his son's first date.

Announcers like Jerry Trupiano, they may be over the top sometimes ("WAYYY BACK!!"), but they bring something to the table. He fell in the same category as someone like Jon Sterling on the Yankees broadcasts. Maybe this new breed of announcer is the wave of the future.

This new guy (Glenn something?) has a way to go, though. I hope he finds his footing as the days, weeks and months go by. From what I heard of this first broadcast I give it a C-.
 
Having grown up on Jack Brickhouse and Harry Caray, I grew to like the comfortable duo of Castig and Trupiano. Sure Trup was corny but, hey, it was genuine Midwestern corn. Nobody seems to be talking about why Trupiano was let go - money, personal relations or, as I suspect, Geffner had connections to the current Sox brass. Obviously, we need to give him his chance, one spring training game is not a good sample by which to judge him. I hope he brings some character to the role.

Sterling (for the Yankees) is pure hokum but it is the kind of thing you love to hate. I can't say I feel the same way about Suzyn "That's right John" Waldman.

...always good to hear baseball on the radio.
 
I think Glenn Geffner was the Red Sox' choice for an announcer; he used to do Paw Sox games and wrote last year's Red Sox media guide. While he sounds knowledgeable, I wish they had someone with a more distinguished,
folksy baritone (he has a tenor voice like Castiglione). He sounds...minor league...Who knows, we may grow
to appreciate him, though.

At one point near the end of the exciting 4-4 tie ...:)... Joe C. gave a thrilling description of new OF Alex
Ochoa's on-the-mark throw to home plate (good arm, kid!) to throw out what would have been the
run that would have defeated the Sox...
 
I haven't tuned in much but I can hear someone with a more baritone voice (and sounds a bit older) doing some of the game as well. Then I remembered: they had hired two people to replace Trup; one was the aforementioned Glenn Gaffner but there is also Dave O'Brien...probably him. not too bad.
 
Dave O'Brien is great. Although we haven't stayed in touch, he started out at the same small-town AM radio station I did. I recall him doing the night show and some "color" for local H.S. football games. Although still young...he's already had a great career including radio stints w/the Atlanta Braves and Florida Marlins. The latter also included some TV before he moved on to ESPN. Great guy...tremendous broadcaster...look forward to hearing him all the time with Boston.
 
I haven't had a chance to listen to Glenn, but I'll hazard this observation...virtually everyone sounds like crap when they first start a new gig. It just takes a little time to grow into a broadcast role and get comfortable with it. Even if you've been doing virtually the same gig previously. Plus the on-air dynamic of a real "duo" doesn't happen overnight.

I also wouldn't be at all surprised if they're still tweaking the processing used on his voice. Possibly fiddling with which headset mic he uses...there can be a tremendous difference with different processing and different mics. I have no idea what, if any, processing they use at the broadcast booth, but I'd be very surprised if there's none. Finding the sweet spot on processing in the booth vs. processing at the transmitter can easily take days or weeks. Months, in some cases. Anyone know what they use to get the game audio back to WEEI/WRKO? I assume it's ISDN, but are they using G.722 or the more robust L2mono/128 or the newer AAC or AAC/Plus? What codec you use on ISDN can interact drastically different with different voices.

BTW, are the games still being/going to be simulcast on WBOQ on 104.9 out in Gloucester?
 
I haven't tuned in to see if WBOQ is still airing them but the following page on WRKO's site lists the
network and mentions them. It also mentions the fact that WCRN and WVEI (AM) in Worcester and
WVEI-FM Easthampton are picking up the Sox...and this should be the first year for WEEI-FM in
RI too right...? So the list seems current

http://www.wrko.com/article.asp?id=319319
I know WBOQ has also picked up Celtics games. Last year the station wasn't sure if they'd be still
carrying Sox games --maybe Entercom did a deal where they could remain a Sox affiliate as long
as they picked up the Celts too?
 
I thought Dave O'Brien was very good on his first game. I would take Dave over Trupo. But i would have Trupu back over Glenn Gaffer.
 
raccoonradio said:
...and this should be the first year for WEEI-FM in
RI too right...? So the list seems current
Click to expand...

Last year was WEEI-FM's first year carrying the games. One feature that they provided that was very nice was the score, and short pieces of information about the game on the RDS display. WVEI-FM will probably have that feature this year as well.
 
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