Within a minute of each other, I received these two different views of the Skip Caray situation at TBS. The first is from Michael Blake of View from the 700 Level:

The news of Skip Carey and Pete Van Wieren had passed under my radar until I read your blurb about it this morning. To say it makes my blood boil is an understatement.

The decision by TBS to move Skip Carey and Pete Van Wieren to Turner South broadcasts and not on TBS is absolutely ridiculous! And TBS's decision to promote their games as "MLB on TBS" and not "Braves on TBS" is just as dumb.

I had the pleasure of growing up in South Florida in the 80s, long before the Marlins came to town. For a baseball fan like myself, my only viewing option -- other than the Saturday Game of the Week -- was the lowly Braves on TBS. So I watched them. Night after night, day after day, I watched the pathetic teams that the Braves sent out to the field in the eighties. I enjoyed watching Dale Murphy, Oddibe McDowell, Ken Oberkfell, Chris Chambliss, Rafael Ramirez, Glenn Hubbard, etc. day in and day out. But more importantly, I enjoyed listening to the pictures that guys like Carey and Van Wieren painted for me. They were the ones who really got me into baseball...

For a number of years, it was the presence of the Braves on the schedule that carried a young TBS station. As the Braves grew in the early 90s, so did the station. One has always been synonymous with the other -- the Braves are part of what TBS is, and Skip Carey and Pete Van Wieren are part of the Braves.

Even after I moved to the Philadelphia area, I have enjoyed listening to Braves broadcasts in order to hear these two gentlemen, as well as their partners, Don Sutton and Joe Simpson. The foursome offered a good listening experience, baseball insight, and overall general entertainment. Knowing that by watching only TBS this season I will be missing half of this broadcasting team, I find myself less likely to watch a TBS broadcast on a regular basis.

I know that not everyone agrees with me on this count. Some people do not enjoy listening to the Braves foursome. But we each have our own tastes. Personally, a baseball highlight for me has always been Sid Bream sliding (almost in slow motion) across the plate, and Skip Carey -- echoing his father, almost -- yelling "Braves win! Braves win! Braves win!". These guys are a part of my own baseball history.

I caught a TBS baseball promo the other day, and I was struck how it was promoting Major League Baseball on TBS, not the Braves...at that point I turned to my wife and asked her what they thought they were hiding by taking the focus away from the team that they broadcast. I guess now we know. They are trying to develop a more national flavor to their broadcasts, and thus in their broadcasters; yet, every game on that station will still have the Braves. Granted, they have a national following, but these games will not create the same sort of national appeal as would a schedule with different teams every time.

I just don't understand the decision. Braves baseball has worked on TBS for 20 years. Carey and Van Wieren have made it work. By trying to give the broadcast more of a national feel, TBS is losing so much of what has made the Braves broadcasts work for so long. It's a poor decision, and I think they will suffer because of it.

The opposing view is from Ben Jacobs:

I don't understand why so many people think it's a bad idea to take Caray and Van Wieren off the national broadcasts for TBS. They're a fine team for Braves fans to watch, but the great thing about TBS - at least for me and a lot of people I know - is watching our favorite teams on TV when they play the Braves. The problem with this is that Caray and Van Wieren take all of the fun out of that because they are so completely biased toward the Braves (and nobody can possibly argue that they are not unless you've never watched a TBS broadcast). I might be more inclined to watch Atlanta play other teams (besides my Red Sox) now that I don't have to listen to Caray and Van Wieren extolling the greatness of everything Braves...

I tend to agree with Mike in this argument. Having worked at ESPN and watched a lot of satellite broadcasts over the years, I think the Braves have one of the best broadcasting groups in the business. And if you really want to hear home team bias, listen to Ken Harrelson do a White Sox game sometime. :-) And I think it's going to be really hard for Sutton and Simpson not to be biased. Remember, even though it says MLB on TBS, Sutton and Simpson are going to be with the Braves every day. It's not like Jon Miller and Joe Morgan visiting different teams every week.

And besides, what about the Braves fans? I assume many people watch TBS because they couldn't see any other baseball, and became Braves fans along the way. The Braves will be the only team without regular home announcers. That, I feel, is an injustice to the home team fans.

In the end, there wasn't anything really wrong with the Braves broadcast. Again, I think this will be a short lived experiment.