By Joe Lucia, Awful Announcing
During Saturday's Mariners-White Sox game, Chicago announcer Hawk Harrelson was at it again. After White Sox pitcher Jose Quintana had a borderline pitch called a ball, White Sox catcher AJ Pierzynski and manager Robin Ventura got ejected....and Harrelson went into a tirade.
"This is absolutely ridiculous."
"Barrett, Lance Barrett, has been absolutely brutal. Brutal."
"He is absolutely brutal."
"Lance Barrett's just stunk the joint up, that's all he's done."
"He's terrible"
"This is one of those games where the film's going to the American League office just to show how bad he's been"
"Well everything that Blake Beavan has thrown up there that Olivo has caught has been a strike. If he caught it, it was a strike. He's got two different strike zones."
Harrelson had a nice meeting with MLB commissioner Bud Selig and White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf back in May after a similar incident, but at least this time, he wasn't screaming and yelling... though his ultimate point remained the same. CBS has a nice breakdown of Barrett's strike zone and the factual basis of Hawk's criticism. (It's hit and miss, with little evidence that Barrett had it out for the White Sox.) We'll see if that May meeting really meant something and there's actual repercussions for Hawk beyond a public slap on the wrist this time because clearly Hawk isn't changing any time soon.