A NEW RELIEF ROLE
P itchers bring a unique element to the broadcast booth, and the Tigers-Astros series was a good time for Root Sports Southwest studio analyst Mike Stanton to get his first game duty this season alongside Todd Kalas.
Stanton’s first game was a 1-0 pitching gem in which Brad Peacock got a rare start for Houston, and the Tuesday game featured curveball wizard Lance McCullers in a 6-2 Astros win. Both games provided ample opportunities for Stanton to pass along tips and observations forged by his 19-year major league career for eight teams, including seven years with the Yankees as one of the top lefthanded setup relievers in baseball.
Like so many other Texans, though, Stanton got his start as a twosport athlete. He grew up in Galena Park and moved before starting high school to Midland, where he played football and baseball for the Midland High School Bulldogs, the former under coach Pat Culpepper, one of the legendary characters in Texas football lore.
A football injury, however, changed his career path toward baseball. Stanton was poised to receive a scholarship to Arkansas to play both sports when he suffered a knee injury and a hip pointer. That sidetracked him to Southwestern University in Georgetown and then to Alvin Community College, where he was drafted by the Braves in the 1987 amateur draft.
Stanton lived in the New York area during a decade with the Yankees and Mets and coached for a high school in New Jersey before he and his family returned
to the Houston area to live in 2010. He was running a baseball academy with another former player, Chad Fox, when he got his first chance to be on camera.
“Chad was friends with (Fox Sports Southwest producer) Patti Smith, who asked Chad if he wanted to do some pre- and postgame work,” Stanton said. “Chad wasn’t interested but put me in touch with Patti. I started off doing a handful of games, and it’s grown from there.”
He became a staple in the Comcast SportsNet Houston studio show alongside Kevin Eschenfelder in 2013 and stayed in that role with the transition to Root Sports Southwest. He will work several games in the booth this year in relief of regular analyst Geoff Blum while working the bulk of the year in the studio.
TV takes up his time during the season, but he remains a coach at heart.
“It’s one of my passions,” he said. “I love to teach the sport and to work with the kids. It’s something that I truly, truly enjoy.”
The long season
I awoke Wednesday to a very mild Internet kerfuffle involving Dave Raymond, the former Astros radio broadcaster who now calls Rangers games for Fox Sports Southwest.
In an interview on KRLD (105.3 FM), the Rangers’ flagship station, Raymond was asked to assess the Rangers’ recent resurgence and, in the process, noted the early-season euphoria that seized Houston fans after the Astros’ quick start.
“Two weeks ago, three weeks ago, the Astros had won the division, they were already in the World Series and they were planning the parade,” Raymond said. “It was laughable the way people were reacting in Houston. And they were talking about burying the Rangers. ‘Oh they’re done. If we beat the Rangers in this series, in Houston,
Astros fans online were none too pleased with comments made by Rangers broadcaster Dave Raymond about the teams’ first series.
oh my God they’re done. They’ll be like, nine games out.’
“Well, yeah, OK, we (the Rangers) were nine games out. Now we’re what, 5 ½? And there’s a long, long way to go, and, they just saw their ace and former Cy Young Award winner (Dallas Keuchel) go on the disabled list for 10 days. And who knows if he comes off in 10 days.”
Raymond’s remarks were picked up by the Dallas Morning News’ website, and the “laughable” comment drew a mildly arch reply from a local reader on Twitter.
Raymond’s reply: “Point was not to dis Astros. Only that teams shouldn’t be buried after 25 (games). Kinda like Tombstone of ’05 (when the Chronicle declared the Astros dead and buried en route to the National League pennant).
“Happy for fans, actually. Story got twisted a bit. Astros are very good. Fans should be pumped. Rangers are okay, too. Long season.”
Raymond did Astros radio for seven years, including some of the team’s more unfortunate years, while working with Brett Dolan alongside the late Milo Hamilton. He’s now the lead TV voice in D-FW, so things are improving for him, as they are, in recent weeks, for the Rangers.
Should ESPN drop MNF?
With so much chatter in the financial world about ESPN’s impact on Disney’s financial reports, here’s a startling suggestion from Todd Juenger, a senior media analyst for Bernstein Research: Drop “Monday Night Football.”
“They only show 17 games per year [around $100 million per game], on a one-off night (Mondays), which has been significantly diluted by the addition of Sunday and Thursday night games,” Juenger told MediaPost’s Television News Daily.
Dropping the games, Juenger said, would save millions of dollars and would not impact ESPN’s subscriber revenue. Of course, for a network whose primary attraction is live sports, one wonders about nose-cutting/face-spiting quandaries here.
Four DVRs no waiting
ESPN says it is averaging 4.37 million viewers for NBA playoff games, up 5 percent from 4.17 million last year. … Former NBA Finals MVP Paul Pierce will join the “NBA Countdown” studio panel for the NBA Finals on ABC. … ESPN said Wednesday that a book on the Baylor University Title IX case titled “Violated: Exposing Rape at Baylor University Amid College Football’s Sexual Assault Crisis” by Paula Lavigne and Mark Schlabach will be published in August by Center Street Books. … The Indianapolis 500 returns to ABC for the 53rd consecutive year Sunday. ESPN will use 96 cameras for the telecast, including two “Visor Cams” mounted on the helmets of drivers Graham Rahal and Josef Newgarden. Allen Bestwick will call the race with former drivers Scott Goodyear and Eddie Cheever with pit reporters Jon Beekhuis, Rick DeBruhl and Dr. Jerry Punch and host Lindsay Czarniak. … Because clearly, clearly, what we need is more inflamed rhetoric during the NBA Finals, ESPN will stage special episodes of “First Take” with Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman before each game of the series. The regular morning episodes of the show also will air from game sites. … The Golden Knights, the NHL’s new Las Vegas franchise, have signed on with Root Sports Rocky Mountain. … ESPN and ABC will simulcast the Pro Bowl on Jan. 28 in Orlando. … ESPN Events has acquired the former Miami Beach Bowl, which will now be played in suburban Dallas as the Frisco Bowl at Toyota Stadium and will air Dec. 20 on ESPN.