January 24, 2009
Chachi Phillips
King Kaufman sums up the move by ESPN of putting Steve Phillips in the booth with Jon and Joe:
Phillips is the new kid, introduced to give a little goose to a program that's gone flat, that has -- if I may use a catchphrase that has MySpaced -- jumped the shark.
Steve Phillips is Seven on "Married ... With Children." He's Olivia on "The Cosby Show." He's Chachi.
There's nothing wrong with bringing in new characters to a show, if the show is more about the story than the characters. That's why Law and Order lasts so long. King, however, is right about just adding a fresh face, especially when that fresh face isn't all that good.
Posted by David Pinto at
11:08 AM
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I'm trying to figure out whether it's an insult to Steve Phillips to compare him to Seven or an insult to Seven to compare him to Steve Phillips.
I don't know, I quite enjoy Steve Phillips analysis on ESPN. He makes good points. It certainly can't hurt. Besides we watch the game for the baseball, not the commentary.
Adding Phillips without subtracting Joe Morgan is like dropping a two hundred ton weight on the Titanic as it slips beneath the waves. Morgan is the undisputed first or second biggest moron in baseball broadcasting, depending on where you rank Tim McCarver. Phillips belongs to that braying ADHD style of color guy who can't simply watch the game without filling the air with hot gas. Phillips would be the anti-Vin Scully.
Go all the way. Add Gilbert Godfrey as the comedy guy. Why hold back ESPN?
Let's get Steven A. Smith in there.
Don't even joke about that, Bob. At least when Morgan says stupid things, he doesn't insist on shouting them.
It does send shivers of fear up your spine. I say just put them all in a booth, maybe 20 of them. You know, include Berman and Kruk, the whole lot, and instruct them to talk non-stop. Out of the babble we could test the theory about the infinite number of monkeys and infinite number of typewriters, but in another format.
