The Orioles are on their way to having another historically bad season, but their TV announcers continue to rank among the major leagues’ best, according to a survey of visitors to the website awfulannouncing.com.
The broadcast team, which usually consists of play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne and color analysts Jim Palmer or Mike Bordick, achieved the fourth-highest weighted score among visitors to the site. Fans were asked to grade the broadcasters on an A-to-F scale; average scores were calculated, with 4.0 being the highest score possible. The O’s team’s score of 2.90 placed them fourth, behind only the San Diego Padres (2.99), San Francisco Giants (2.98) and New York Mets (2.97).
“The Orioles have started to add more analysts to their broadcasts,” a story announcing the scores noted, “and have relied on Jim Palmer less, and the result has been … well, fine, especially given how unwatchable the on-field product has been at times.”
In addition to Thorne, Palmer and Bordick, Orioles announcers listed in the story included radio play-by-play man Jim Hunter, who fills in for Thorne on occasion, and part-time analysts Ben McDonald and Brian Roberts.
“A” was the most frequent score attached to the Orioles’ broadcast team, with 873 of the 2,258 opinionated fans rating them that highly. Thorne and company received 763 B’s, 322 C’s, 116 D’s and 184 F’s.
Orioles broadcasters have consistently rated high in the survey, which began in 2014. They ranked third then and in 2016, sixth in 2017, and 4th in 2018.
Sadly, for our baseball brethren down I-95 in Washington, D.C., the Nationals broadcast team of Bob Carpenter and F.P. Santangelo finished dead last, with a score of 1.53. That may be small solace, with the Nationals still fighting for a playoff berth and the Orioles long out of the running. But we O’s fans will take what we can get this season.
