Results tagged ‘ Brian Anderson ’

More reaction to Greinke

Baseball was still buzzing with reaction to the Brewers’ trade for Zack Greinke on Monday, when the right-hander made his first appearance in the home clubhouse at Miller Park. After rounding-up some national reaction yesterday morning, let’s stay closer to our MLB.com home. 

MLB.com national columnist Peter Gammons:
When the Zack Greinke deal was agreed upon, Brewers general manager Doug Melvin told Royals GM Dayton Moore, “What’s nice about this trade is that it isn’t a big market taking from a small market.”
Melvin understands Moore’s predicaments. Milwaukee has become a mid-market team that has competed, having made the 2008 playoffs and drawn 3 million fans. Of course, when one traces the franchise’s history back to the Seattle Pilots, the fact remains that it has never won a World Series and until 2007 had gone since 1992 without so much as a winning record.
According to one market survey, Milwaukee and Kansas City (along with Cleveland) are the three Major League cities not in the top 40 urban markets in the U.S.
“Teams in markets like ours cannot go out and sign a Cliff Lee or a top free-agent pitcher,” said Melvin. “We have to rely on scouting and development and try to do what we did with CC Sabathia and now Greinke.”
In July 2008, Melvin traded four players for Sabathia, and the Brewers rode the left-hander’s heart and soul into their first postseason appearance since the 1982 Harvey’s Wallbangers, as Sabathia went 11-2 with a 1.65 ERA for his new club.
“When you’re in a smaller market,” Melvin said, “there are things you can do and things you cannot. The margin for error is small. Sometimes people do not understand why you do the things you do, but necessity is something you can’t spell out for fans, because they don’t want to hear it.”
The past two days have brought a flurry of beware-the-Brewers fanfare. With the addition of former Cy Young Award winner Zack Greinke, Milwaukee has suddenly become a trendy pick to contend in, if not actually win, the often chaotic National League Central.
To which the only really appropriate response is: Welcome to the bandwagon.
Because the Brewers were actually a team to take seriously in the Central even before they added Greinke. With the ex-Royals ace on board, they’re more than that. They may very well be the favorites in a division in which no other contender has seriously improved itself this winter.
The Brewers featured a potent offense in 2010, one that scored the fourth-most runs in the NL. Their bullpen, a mess early in the year, sorted itself out nicely by season’s end and looks like an asset going into 2011. Yovani Gallardo is a front-of-the-rotation starter, and recent acquisition Shaun Marcum will likely look like one, too, now that he’s been traded from the American League East to the NL Central.
So if it had merely added another innings-eater, a useful but not spectacular talent like Carl Pavano, Milwaukee would be worth watching. With Greinke on board, look out.
It started with Marcum. And when the backlash builds — people advising about putting too much stock into one move — remember that. It’s two moves, two big ones. Marcum is 29 and coming off an outstanding year in baseball’s toughest division, the AL East. He struck out 165 in 195 1/3 innings and posted a 3.64 ERA while starting nearly a third of his games against the Yankees, Rays and Red Sox.
Then they added Greinke, a Cy Young Award winner just one year ago. Greinke endured a relatively rough 2010 but still pitched at a very high level, and he admitted to some motivation issues while pitching for a struggling Kansas City team. The Brewers believe that by putting he right-hander in a pennant race, they’ll energize him and will see a pitcher more like the ’09 Greinke than the ’10 edition.
If that’s the case, this suddenly becomes one of the three or four best rotations in the NL. Add that to what should again be a top-four offense, and you have a contender. Especially in the Central.
The Brewers can win the World Series.
I know, I know, it’s December and a lot has to go right during the course of a long season to even make the playoffs. But, there is no question, the 2011 Milwaukee Brewers have the “bones” of an actual finish-line-championship team.
 
Zack Greinke is a game changer. He immediately goes to the top of Milwaukee’s rotation giving all subsequent slots an advantage on every other rotation match-up outside the Phillies. The offensive weapons are in place and will arrive to the ballpark each day burden-free, knowing they don’t need to score six runs to have a chance to win. In Greinke, Yovani Gallardo, and Shaun Marcum, you have three pitchers who were all Opening Day starters and aces of their respective staff’s last season.  
 
The current starting rotation of Greinke (10-14, 4.17 ERA), Gallardo (14-7, 3.84), Marcum (13-8, 3.64), Randy Wolf (13-12, 4.17), and Chris Narveson (12-9, 4.99) is perhaps…take a breath…on paper…THE BEST ROTATION EVER ASSEMBLED IN 41 YEARS OF BREWERS BASEBALL. 
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Anderson back on TBS postseason team

Brewers broadcaster Brian Anderson will be part of TBS coverage of the Division Series for the third straight season. He’s part of the release I received this morning:

TBS today announced the network’s broadcasting teams for exclusive coverage of all four MLB League Division Series (LDS) and the American League Championship Series (ALCS).  For the ALCS, TBS’s team will be led by Emmy winner Ernie Johnson, paired with analysts and World Series Champions Ron Darling and John Smoltz.
TBS’s coverage of the American League Division Series (ALDS) and National League Division Series (NLDS) will be handled by a quartet of play-by-play announcers: Johnson, Brian Anderson, Dick Stockton and Don Orsillo.  These announcers will work with a team of veteran analysts, including regular Sunday MLB on TBS announcers Darling, Smoltz and Buck Martinez, along with Bob Brenly and Joe Simpson, who are both returning to TBS this postseason.
David Levy, President of Sales, Distribution and Sports Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. announcing the team said “We’ve assembled a great group of talented, experienced announcers for our MLB Postseason coverage.  This versatile team will be fully prepared to deliver insightful and engaging analysis that will complement all of the excitement and drama that will unfold on the field in October. I am also thrilled Ernie will take on the lead role of play-by-play during the LDS and ALCS. He is one of the preeminent announcers in sports today and his experience and presence in the booth during the postseason will clearly enrich our game telecasts.”
The 2010 MLB Postseason on TBS kicks off on Wednesday, Oct. 6 with a LDS tripleheader (times TBD).  The network’s exclusive coverage of the ALCS will get underway on Friday, Oct. 15.
Following are the announcer pairings for TBS’ exclusive coverage of the LDS and ALCS (play-by-play/analyst):
o Ernie Johnson (play-by-play), Ron Darling (analyst) and John Smoltz (analyst)
o Brian Anderson (play-by-play) and Joe Simpson (analyst)
o Dick Stockton (play-by-play) and Bob Brenly (analyst)
o Don Orsillo (play-by-play) and Buck Martinez (analyst)
 
In the studio, host Matt Winer will be joined by Hall of Famers Dennis Eckersley and Cal Ripken, as well as two-time World Series Champion David Wells.  The team will offer insights and break-down all the action throughout TBS’s postseason coverage.  MLB insider and Sports Illustrated senior baseball writer for the magazine and SI.com Tom Verducci, along with Craig Sager, Marc Fein and David Aldridge, will serve as TBS reporters during the ALDS and NLDS.
 
“The MLB Postseason is one of the crown jewels in sports and must-see programming for TBS,” said Jeff Behnke, Turner Sports executive producer.  ”We look forward to maximizing our productions resources, including the varied unique perspectives of our on-air talent, to provide baseball fans across the country with informative and entertaining telecasts throughout our Postseason schedule.”
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Brewers players, staff S.C.O.R.E. at local schools

MILWAUKEE — Brewers players, coaches and front office staff visited 26 schools in the five-county area on Friday to talk to students about their community outreach program on S.C.O.R.E. for Excellence Day.

 

The S.C.O.R.E. (School, Community, Opportunities, Role Models, and Excellence) program is in its fifth season, and it provides messages about character education through each of the five elements of the initiative.

As part of the program, left fielder Ryan Braun, broadcaster Brian Anderson, former All-Star Larry Hisle and the Brewers racing sausages visited Roosevelt Middle School of the Arts in Milwaukee.

“It’s important to have good life skills,” Anderson told the students. “We want to encourage you to learn that, take it home to your brothers and sisters, your parents, reach out into your community and take this S.C.O.R.E. program and keep it with you. We come out and we want to give you the message, but really the message dies unless you take it out there with you.”

Hisle, who played for the Brewers from 1978-82, talked about how much his community meant to him when growing up.

“I credit that city for as much of my success as I do myself,” Hisle said, referring to his hometown of Portsmouth, Ohio. “It afforded me every opportunity and all the resources necessary for success. The only thing missing was how badly I wanted to play baseball.”

During the presentation, Anderson and Braun presented five baseballs — one with each of the letters of the acronym on it — to five students that participated and talked about why each one of the elements of the program is important.

Braun, who attended the University of Miami on an academic scholarship, told the students that while he always hoped to play baseball professionally, his academics still came first.

The program finished with a question and answer session between the students and Braun, who was noticeably impressed by the students.

“Really impressive,” said Braun of the questions. “I think they really paid attention and they really believe in this program and I think the Brewers do too. So it was a good day all around, I had a good time and I was thoroughly impressed.”

– Jordan Schelling, Associate Reporter

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Anderson on Harwell

Brewers television play-by-play man Brian Anderson called legendary Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell “as good a person as he was a broadcaster” on Tuesday after the news that Harwell had passed away at 92. 

“He will be missed,” said Anderson, a sentiment felt through baseball on a sad day. 
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Spring broadcast schedule set

The Brewers today finalized their 2010 Spring Training broadcast schedule on Friday and announced that all 30 spring game dates will include a broadcast on at least one of three platforms: Webcast via Brewers.com, radio via WTMJ-AM and television via FOX Sports Wisconsin.
A total of 16 games will be broadcast on Newsradio 620 WTMJ with Hall of Fame announcer Bob Uecker and Cory Provus calling the action on the Brewers Radio Network. The TV schedule includes Monday, March 8 vs. Seattle; Monday, March 15 vs. Cleveland and Saturday, March 27 vs. Texas.  Brewers television play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson and Brewers television analyst Bill Schroeder will team up for their fourth year in the broadcast booth in 2010.   
Twelve other games will be webcast on Brewers.com. Anderson will once again handle the bulk of that duty.
Here’s the full schedule in PDF form: 2010 Spring Training Broadcast Schedule (calendar).pdf
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Anderson on Escobar

escobar.jpgBrewers TV play-by-play man Brian Anderson and I must run with like-minded friends, because he’s been getting the same question this winter. No, not, “What do you do in the offseason?” But, “What do you expect from Alcides Escobar.”

I think Anderson comes up with the correct answer in this great post on his MLBlog, and I wholeheartedly agree that Prince Fielder and Ryan Braun have set an impossibly high bar that hopefully won’t get in the way of Escobar’s rookie progression. BA also gets into the pressure Escobar faces to follow in the footsteps of some legendary Venezuelan forefathers, a topic that requires much more examination in Spring Training.

So I’ll stop writing and let you head over to Brian Anderson’s House of Blogs for a great read.

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Upcoming online chats

Brewers TV play-by-play man Brian Anderson will take part in an online chat Friday at 10 a.m. CT in which I am sure he will answer all of your concerns, and a trio of players will follow him on Sunday. Gregg Zaun, Manny Parra and Carlos Villanueva will take part in a chat at 3:30 p.m. CT Sunday during the “Brewers On Deck” event. 

You’ll have to be registered with MLB.com to submit questions for both chats. More information is available by clicking through to Brewers.com.
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Brewers Charities helps distribute turkeys, trimmings

Brewers third-base coach Brad Fischer and his wife, Mary, bullpen catcher Marcus Hanel and his wife, Jill, TV play-by-play announcer Brian Anderson and Brewers alum Larry Hisle hit the streets of Milwaukee on Monday morning to distribute Thanksgiving meals to 500 families facing financial struggles this holiday season.

Brewers Charities teamed with 1290-AM WMCS, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke, the Milwaukee Brotherhood of Firefighters, Feeding America/Eastern Wisconsin and the Hunger Task Force for this year’s event.

The Thanksgiving meal program has typically targeted 300 families, but was expanded for 2009 as a response to the down economy and job losses. The families were identified through letters and e-mails sent to the radio station and through area community service organizations. 

The Thanksgiving program was a team effort. Feeding America donated the fixings for the families which include stuffing mix, gravy, potatoes, cranberry sauce, macaroni & cheese, canned yams, corn, green beans and fruit, applesauce, strawberry gelatin, corn muffins, cake mixes and frosting. The Hunger Task Force donated 300 turkeys.  The remaining 200 turkeys will be purchased thanks to donations from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office, Brewers Charities, the Milwaukee Brewers Wives and the Brotherhood of Firefighters.

Thanks to Brewers team photographer Scott Paulus for passing along some photos:

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Marsha Williams (far left) and Joyce Harris of Milwaukee receive a Thanksgiving food package from Brewers third base coach Brad Fischer and his wife, Mary. (Scott Paulus/Brewers)

Hisle01 copy.jpg Former Brewer Larry Hisle, now a member of the club’s community relations department, speaks at a press conference before Monday’s distribution. Pictured (L to R) are Mary and Brad Fischer, Hisle, Brian Anderson and Marcus and Jill Hanel. (Scott Paulus/Brewers)

Turkey01 copy.jpg
Typically, Brewers Charities organizes the distribution of about 300 holiday food baskets. This year the total was bumped to 500 to reflect need in the community. (Scott Paulus/Brewers)


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Brewers third base coach Brad Fischer helps load packages of food at Miller Park on Monday. Recipients were selected by charatible organizations in Milwaukee and through letters and e-mails to 1290-AM WMCS. (Scott Paulus/Brewers)

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Provus is radio pick; radio and TV schedule unveiled

The Brewers’ flagship radio station hired Cory Provus of WGN in Chicago to fill the vacancy in Milwaukee’s radio booth on the same day the Brewers unveiled their Spring Training and regular-season broadcast schedules.

Provus, a 2000 graduate of Syracuse University, appeared on AM 620-WTMJ in Milwaukee on Monday morning and will call his first game alongside Bob Uecker on Feb. 25, when the Brewers host the A’s at Maryvale Baseball Park. He handled Cubs pre- and post-game programming for WGN and often spelled play-by-play man Pat Hughes in the fifth inning of game broadcasts.

He replaces Jim Powell, who left in January for a higher-profile job with the Atlanta Braves after 13 seasons in the booth with Uecker.

The Feb. 25 game is one of 36 Brewers Spring Training games and all will be broadcast either on the Brewers Radio Network, MLB.com, FSN Wisconsin or Milwaukee’s WMLW TV. A total of three games will be broadcast on television, 19 on radio and 16 via MLB.com webcast.

During the regular season, Uecker and Provus will call all 162 games on the radio as usual, and a total of 157 games will be televised, with Brian Anderson (who has an excellent MLBlog, by the way) and Bill Schroeder back in the booth. That includes 136 games on FSN Wisconsin, 15 games aired locally in Milwaukee on WMLW and four national broadcasts.

On his blog, Anderson wrote that Telly Hughes will replace departed sideline reporter Trenni Kusnierek on TV broadcasts.

The national games, some with updated start times, include:

April 12 game vs. Cubs at 7:05 p.m. CT on ESPN
May 24 at Twins at 7:05 p.m. CT on ESPN
May 26 vs. Cardinals at 7:05 p.m. CT on ESPN
June 13 vs. White Sox at 3:05 p.m. CT on FOX
June 15 at Indians at 6:05 p.m. CT on ESPN
June 20 at Tigers at 3:05 p.m. CT on FOX
Sept. 5 vs. Giants at 3:05 p.m. CT on FOX

All of those times are subject to change, of course. The team’s complete 2009 broadcast schedule will be online soon.
 

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