Secrets of the City

Free Bert!

It’s a real scary commentary about the agendas of certain groups of people in our society to see how the FCC, under this administration, has accumulated the amount of power that it has over the past 6 years and has broadcasters all over this country fearful and shaking in their boots. Sadly, even tributes to the 9/11 tragedy are under coming the microscope of alleged indecency…..there are a handful CBS affiliated stations who are either planning to show the documentary “9/11″ after midnight or they will not be showing it at all for fear of having the FCC come down on them and fine them! Slowly and steadily, the idea and practice of a free press in this country is being muzzled by a vocal minority who wish to impose their beliefs onto a silent and timid majority!

Bert’s Wikipedia entry has a list of some other “off-color” comments.

“Later in the same broadcast, the Twins were facing New York Yankees reliever Mike Myers. Blyleven introduced Myers and commented on his unorthodox submarine delivery by saying: ‘Myers at six-foot-three, but he throws like a midget.’”

Is this guy reaaly qualified to be an announcer?

I can’t believe that Blyleven’s wikipedia entry doesn’t include the thing that he was most famous for while a member of the Twins … after his curveball that is … he was a master of that long-lost craft … giving a hot foot to an unsuspecting team mate. Do you think I should add that?

I think he’s one of the best color guys in baseball. The fans love him. Sure he says some weird stuff, but he’s just a goofy ball player.

Bert and Dick Bremer are far better to listen to than the guys on WCCO Radio.

It’s really easy to point the finger at the FCC, but save some finger for hypersensitive, wacko groups like the PTC that register “complaints” in the first place, necessitating the FCC investigations – and you can be sure that oftentimes the people who are writing all those letters didn’t actually witness the “offense” when it was originally broadcast in the FIRST place.

Yes, I understand that it takes complaints from nutjobs like Brent Bozell, Jerry Falwell, Donald Wildmon, etc…..and their naive blind followers to initiate an FCC investigation, but I believe that this administration would have acted in the same manner to tighten the grip on broadcasters regardless if no one complained! As with much of what comes from this administration regarding policies, the rules are made up as they go along.

I agree, scoste. The radio guys suck. John Gordon is painful.

I tried to give someone a hot foot once, tatemani. It ain’t easy. He should be in the hall just for that.

That and his amazing 12 to 6 curve.

The page tatemani linked to pretty much sums up why Bert should be in the hall: “‘Bert (Blyleven), forget the wins and losses. You finished almost five thousand innings. You pitched in 700 games. You struck out almost four thousand guys. What more does one arm have to do, to prove to people that this was a gift from God, and a guy who busted his butt for 22 years, and completed 242 games, and shut out sixty teams?’ – Pitcher Rob Dibble”

Actually, I think it would’ve been alot of fun to be in the Twins clubhouse when Bert, Herbie and Kirby were running the show…..I’ve heard alot of really funny stories about these guys.

See, *I* believe this administration places “amount of times the word ‘fuck’ is said on television” pretty low on the list of things they’d like to control, but of course neither of us will be proven right in our beliefs so long as those letters keep getting written.

Too bad there isn’t some mechanism to write to the FCC to register a “perfectly fine with what was broadcast” opinion to balance out the nutjobs…or is there?

Someone should make a movie about behind the scenes of the ‘87 Twins. What a bleeping story.

Maybe there is a way to communicate to the FCC about a perfectly wonderful and upright program on TV, I’m not sure, but as I heard Linda Ellerbee once remark, “no one remembers a newscast filled with happy stories, but one that leads with a murder or shooting is remembered by all”. The same applies for programming, no one remembers the good programming, just the crap!

bert’s funny. and i like john gordon too. his delivery reminds me of watching baseball with my grandpa. not that i ever did, but that’s what i think it would be like.

I watch plenty of out of market baseball broadcasts and think Bert and the others do a pretty good job. In fact, the only ones I like better are the guys that call the games out of Boston on NESN and the ones that do Yankee games on the YES network. The worst by far are the annnouncers for the White Sox.

In his prime, Herb Carneal did a good job, but you gotta admit from listening to him now, he should have hung up the mic about 5 years ago. I just never cared for the delivery of John Gordon, everything he says sounds like he’s reading from a script. The best baseball broadcasters that I’ve actually heard are Ernie Harwell, who was the voice of the Detroit Tigers for decades on radio and Vin Scully who I remember doing Saturday afternoon games on NBC-TV and then Monday night radio games for CBS.

Herb Carneal was great. John Gordon sounds like Porky Pig.

I’m not a fan of the White Sox guys, either. The guys on TBS for Atlanta aren’t bad. My favorite TV guy has to be Bob Costas, but he almost never does baseball any more. Bob Uecker has to be the funniest.

No one will ever top Ernie Harwell in the radio baseball color commentary department.

Not that he’s in the same league, but as far as current TV color commentators, Matt Vasgersian of the Padres is my favorite.

It’s amazing to me how so many in our culture gives such power to WORDS. Again it’s fear mongering at its finest.

For fuck’s sake! When will we grow up?

And don’t give me that BS about “protecting the children.” If you cared about your kids you’d get them the fuck away from the TV to begin with.

Baseball sucks balls anyway.

And Bush controls the FCC so shut-the-fuck-up about letting him off the hook for the bullshit they waste all of our time with.

Bush = Dobson = PAC = FCC

Same fucking people. Fascist Fuckwits one and all.

My friend put me on to that old guy who still does the games for the Dodgers – what’s his name? He’s super old school and it’s relaxing to listen to him. I’ll think of it. Anyway, you’re right, Costas does a great job. Most of the nationally broadcast guys do pretty well, with the possible exception of Berman, who I think should stick with football.

Ok, I looked it up. It’s the great Vin Scully who still calls the games for the Dodgers after all these years.

I have the baseball cable package and watch games from across the country and Dick and Bert are among the best announcing teams in baseball. They’re a little less tolerable this year, but still pretty good. Vin Scully is in a class all his own, the guy does games by himself for crying out loud.

And, maybe I’m wrong, but I think fuck was unacceptable to say on television long before George Bush.

It’s starting to go too far, however. NBC now also has to apologize for Helen Mirren and Callista Flockheart saying, “Tits over Ass,” at the Emmys.
Yes, it’s because a group complained (and funny enough they complained for “tits” instead of “ass”), but it’s starting to get super restrictive on the airwaves.
It used to be that there were seven words you couldn’t say. Now there are more AND there are situations you can’t use.

Re: “I think fuck was unacceptable to say on television long before George Bush” …

True, but the possible fine has increased 10-fold under this administration.

So what? Oh, that’s right, the war on creativity. I forgot. Tits over ass is an artistic expression. Silly me.

Yeah, but the FCC is really engaged in overkill nowdays such that the networks and their local stations back away from broadcasting war footage and so on because the soldiers swear while taking hostile fire, or 9-11 docs because firemen and bystanders swear at the enormity of it all. It seems there is no attempt to take into account context or intent with regard to objectionable language. I mean, please, suspending Bert is absurd.

(and funny enough they complained for “tits” instead of “ass”)

“Ass” isn’t considered offensive speech because it’s the democrat mascot.

I think the suspension was appropriate. That said, I really like Blyleven, and I think he does a good job.

I’m not a fan of cursing. I think it’s like pollution. And it’s used by people who probably rather inarticulate. Not that I’m above it, I just don’t like to do it in public.

I heard a guy say something pretty pithy once. In the old days, people used to go to a game and everybody smoked, but no one cursed. Now, no one can smoke, but you hear a lot of cursing.

Ha, ha! This is rich! A FOX affilated station gets into hot water with the FCC because of an on air sports announcer uses the F-word on Live TV for a baseball game. And you suckers thought that only “liberals” in the MSM do this more often than Repukes.

CAN YOU SAY: “POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK?”

“I’m embarrassed something like that happened. I’ve been doing this for 11 years and nothing like this had happened.”

Oh come on. If I had a nickel everytime I dropped the F-bomb at work, I’d have at least 5 cents on today’s tab.

Just gotta always assume if you’re wearing a mic don’t say anything you wouldn’t say to your mother.

I remember watching the ‘96 election returns on ABC when David Brinkley tore into Bill Clinton and made some rather tacky personal remarks about him. This was broadcast live on air, and once it dawned on him and the others seated around him, he immediately clammed up and ABC broke away for a commercial. That next Sunday, he had the President on as one of his guests and very publicly apologized to him on air for his comments from that night. Just goes to show that even an old veteran of the news business can make a huge blunder and get called for it.

At least he wasn’t in a stairwell with his skin flute being played by some Drink ho.

YouTube comes through!