I can't be the only person who thinks this is good news. FOX is the worst thing ever to happen to post-season baseball. And I'm including the Wild Card in that.

But Fox has done a good job of subsidizing the Devil Rays and Royals by overpaying.

1.
You aren't. Fox is just terrible.

Alas poor Scooter, I knew him, Horatio.

Perhaps Fox should consider what it's doing to drive viewers away... cough Tim McCarver and Joe Buck cough

HOLY GOD that's the best news I've heard in a long time. And as irritating as Buck and McCarver are and as much as I never want to hear them again, I have NO DOUBT that whatever annoying Fox suits they have informing the broadcast these past 75 years (seems that long, doesn't it?) have made them worse than they already are, which is no small feat. The entirety of their coverage - from stem to stern - is horrendous. It would have been awful no matter who they put in there.

Let us hope it goes somewhere else and this isn't just posturing from everyone.

With Bush's new FOX-run press office, it seems somehow more logical that he's been running those broadcasts into the ground, like his other operation.

Just as long as MLB doesn't go to, say, OLN. If that happens I wlil definitely break Bob's no swearing rule.

5 - The main reason I didn't mention McCarver & Buck is that I fear they might follow the postseason wherever it went. Personally, I would love to hear the Steve Stone - Steve Phillips squad from ESPN doing as many games as possible. I think they're pretty great.

6 - Your handle must be a Neal Stephenson reference. Right?

Chernin said that Fox has a "very straightforward view" of baseball.

Dodger fans know this better than most

Cue the Bob Costas intros...

Voxter -

Yes on Stephenson. Big fan, and no, that series didn't need an editor. Ha! (actually, I do believe that)

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO on Steve Phillips doing any announcing! From your mouth to no one's ears.

Hmmm... should this be an thread on who our dream annoucers would be? I vote for Team Gary! Gary Thorne and Gary Cohen. (I admit to liking Jon Miller's cadence and good humor as well, but I'm afriad he cannot be surgically removed from Joe Morgan, who I don't despise as much as everyone else, but he's just not that good, which is reason enough.) I guess I need a former-player-color man.... hmmmm....... Eucker? He is WAY smarter than he is given credit for.

AS a Dodger partisan (sp)baseball and fox splitting would be great and might be the tonic the Dodgers need to go forward in a big way. Don't think the time has completly recovered from FOX. ESPN is the logical choice, but for and over the air network, would have no problem seeing it return to NBC with Bob Costas anchoring some weekend games.

If Bob Costas comes back, he can tell us of his memories about Mickey Mantle.

Again ....

It will be the Joe Garagiola telling stories about Yogi Berra equivalent of the 21st century.

Before baseball was on FOX it was on CBS and people complained about Jack Buck and Sean McDonough and Tim McCarver just as much as they complain about Buck fils and McCarver.

When the games were on The Baseball Network people complained, when they were on NBC people complained about Scully and Garagiola and before that people complained about Tony Kubek and Curt Gowdy and Sandy Koufax and Pee Wee Reese.

And if it goes exclusively to ESPN I'll complain because their announcing teams are unlistenable.

How could people complain about Scully or Gowdy?!

At any rate, before FOX got exclusive rights the postseason was split between FOX and NBC. FOX had McCarver & co. NBC had Costas and Morgan . . . and NBC was the better broadcast by leaps and bounds. It's only partly about the announcers. It's also about killing scooter and exploding graphics and getting far far away from Jeanie Zelasco (sp?) etc. FOX doesn't understand baseball, never has (see Howard Byrant's "Juicing the Game" for some tidbits). I'll take Costas on NBC, Al Michaels on ABC, or whoever it is CBS still has connections with as long as the broadcast is a baseball broadcast and not an NFL broadcast superimposed over a baseball game.

For the record, the woman's name is Jeanne Zelasko. I just remember the first name since it was my mother's. But Ms. Zelasko pronounces it incorrectly. It should be pronounced as one syllable. My mom cringed if people used two syllables to say her name.

Also, Al Michaels works for NBC now. He switched over when MNF became SNF and moved to NBC.

I would think that Michaels wouldn't mind working some World Series games although I assume NBC would have to have Michaels and Costas duke it out.

As for people complaining about Scully, they did. I remember A's fans telling me what a homer Scully was in the 1988 World Series. And Mets and Red Sox fans both thought Scully was "against" them during that Series.

15. Many people complained about Gowdy when he did baseball on NBC. He was known as being boring and a master of the cliche.

Does no one think it a little odd that Fox wants a "guaranteed" profit? I thought it was a dog-eat-dog world out here in the land of the capitalist free and the home of the risk-taking brave.

Is Fox taking lessons from defense contractors? "Listen here, Selig, we want a cost-plus deal here."

No I think it is perfectly reasonable for a business to avoid entering into an agreement that is not in the best interests of the company and its shareholders.

Fox has tried baseball as a "loss leader" and they don't think it's a good idea anymore.