Hard on the ears

"Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day (pause). Aren't we all?"

Vin Scully said this during a national TV broadcast in 1991. I looked it up. It's funny. It sounds so unrehearsed.
And it's just the way he talks to people. I know because I once sat at a table with him in the mid-1980s when the Dodgers visited the Cubs in Wrigley Field. He and I shared a little pre-game meal in the press room, and he was matter-of-fact, just a solid guy. I doubt he remembers me. Hell, I almost forgot the meeting myself till a few minutes ago.
But I keep coming back to Scully because he is such a natural in the booth. Like Ernie Harwell used to be when I was a kid, and "a man from Grand Rapids" grabbed a foul ball in the stands at Tiger Stadium. That was an Ernie call. He just mentioned the name of a Michigan town or city, apparently to let listeners from those places know he understood how they felt about the Tigers. It was a neat trick, original. It was natural. And that's the point.
I don't get anything original, nothing seems natural when I tune in today's broadcasters. Mike Emerick does the NHL on NBC tonight. In NY City, Emerick is lauded by experts as one of the best. He's hard to listen to, though, because he NEVER stops talking. He's nonstop, word after word after word. He hardly every takes a breath, and most of the time it's just grating on the ears. After a few minutes, it makes me tired just listening to him.
Joe Buck does this, too. Nonstop talking. He never shuts up. If his name weren't Buck, he'd be in Peoria, doing minor-league games. He's nothing like his dad, who was as good as Vin and Ernie.
I rarely listen or watch the NBA, but Mark Jackson is plain lousy. And Jeff Van Gundy is plain silly. The only two worth listening to in that league are Mike Breen and Doug Collins. In NY City, Marv Albert, who is on the national broadcasts for the league playoffs, is considered godlike. Personally, I say he's stiff, overrated.
Both Emerick and Buck often seem to be shouting at me. At least that's how I feel as I listen to them. They don't raise their voices in an effort to sell an important play or moment as much as they yell, like fans themselves. It's almost comical how excited they seem to get. Quit shouting at me. Stop talking all the time. On TV, can you let the story unfold? We have the pictures right in front of us. Be economical with your words, please.
I have been listening to the Tigers' TV dou of Mario Impemba and Rod Allen lately. Impemba is OK, actually. He's not overly talkative, and he tries sharing thoughts with Allen. But Allen is simply awful. He talks all the time, too. It's like he gets $2 for every word he says on a broadcast. It's terribly annoying. And he's not overly insightful. He tells us he was talking to someone in the locker room or in the dugout, like that's a big thing. Hey, moron, you are a member of the media. You have access to players. You think that you have to pound that into our brains?
Instead of saying, "I was talking to Gary [Sheffield] in the dugout before the game ..." just say, "Sheffield said ..."
Maybe I'm listening too closely to all of this. Maybe I'm watching too many teams, too many games. Maybe I should turn the volume off.