Okay, so I've spent a lot of time over the last two days watching playoff baseball on TBS, and while there are plenty of things I'm not too thrilled about with their coverage, for the most part it hasn't been half bad. The studio show with Ernie Johnson, Dennis Eckersley, and Cal Ripken is a bit unwatchable at times, but they're still getting the feel for each other, so there's a chance for it to get better.
A quick fix would be to replace Ripken with Charles Barkley, but I'm pretty sure that it would be impossible to get him away from whichever golf course/craps table he's frequenting at the moment. So I guess I'll just have to deal with Ripken and cross my fingers he gets better. The one thing I know I can't take much more of, though, is Mr. Dick Stockton.
How does this man continue to get work with networks? The man butchers names on a regular basis, and half the time I'm not even sure he knows where he is. Dick was working the Cubs and Dodgers game on Wednesday, and before the first pitch was even thrown he'd already made two mistakes.
When describing how historic a matchup it was to have the Dodgers and Cubs playing a postseason series, he said "to say this is a big series would be an understudy." I think he meant to say understatement, but with Dick Stockton, who knows for sure? Maybe he really meant that it would be a great series that TBS can move to the primetime slot when they don't have a Red Sox/Angels game to show.
A minute later he referred to Cubs starting pitcher Ryan Dempster as Bryan Dempster. It's a tiny mistake, I know, but it's the kind of error Stockton makes on a regular basis. If TBS wants to make their baseball coverage better, the first move they should make is finding a replacment for Stockton.
