I like this hat!

It’s a pretty miserable experience being a White Sox fan, which is how they like it, and the broadcast used to be no different when Hawk Harrelson spent three hours grumbling about umpires, sabermetrics, the Twins, his golf game, or his unifying theory of baseball until it was time to fall silent whenever the opposition team scored (he did provide this though, the greatest moment in baseball broadcasting history). In his last few years, the only entertainment was to be found in seeing whether or not Steve Stone would club him over the head with his monitor, such was their camaraderie.

But that’s all changed since Benetti took over. While occasionally a little homer-ific, Benetti is quickly becoming ubiquitous in all sports with his national assignments, and he is that good. Stone might be more up his own ass than anyone currently on the planet, but he’s also a damn good analyst, especially when it comes to pitching. He also has a sharp sense of humor, matched by Benetti, and the two get along gracefully. It’s a beacon in the wasteland that usually is whatever’s going on at Comiskey.

The goddamn gold standard— the San Francisco Giants. These two have been at it forever, but that doesn’t mean they sound bored or jaded, but genuinely appreciative of what they get to do and who they get to do it with. Kuiper is the rare case of a player moving to a play-by-play role and he’s excelled at it, never trying too hard to fill in blank moments but punching the big ones up. Krukow is the best kind of dork, and it always sounds like you caught him having a beer outside after finishing a shitty round of golf but just happy that he got to play at all while not afraid to mock himself or anything around him in the jolliest way. Another kicker is that when Kuiper can’t make it — and his health took a turn the past couple years — Jon Miller fills in most of the time and the broadcast doesn’t miss a beat. Another excellent way to close out a summer night.

If you have trouble sleeping, or just need some white noise to fill in the background while you meditate or do some yoga or contemplate the emptiness of life, here are your guys. Oneil Cruz could throw a ball so hard that it snaps a support column behind first base and brings down the whole upper deck and this team would treat it like they just discovered a hangnail. When Axl Rose wrote “Coma,” he was probably listening to a Pirates game on TV.

Does it have Chip Caray (pictured) on it? Then it fucking blows.

I’m not sure who watches the empty glossiness and personality black hole that is ESPN and decides they have to get whatever plastic doll is on Sportscenter into their fans’ lives every goddamn day, but that’s apparently who does the hiring for D-Backs TV. Berthiaume could be one of 20 play-by-play guys and no one would know the difference if you rotated them nightly. When AI replaces all the broadcasters he’ll be first out the door. He looks and sounds like he’s been practicing his sports arguments and calls in a mirror since he was 16. Brenly went from a guy who casually dropped Zeppelin references into his analysis to sounding like he’s going to leave in the 7th inning to go complete the border wall.

This one pains me because the A’s used to have one of the best broadcast teams in the league along with a genuinely interesting team to watch. They were phasing out Ray Fosse before he got sick a few years ago to replace him with Dallas Braden for god knows why, and Fosse’s terribly sad passing only hastened that process.

Kuiper remains a pro but Braden is doing some mash-up of Matthew McConaughey and Guy Fieri every night, trying to sound like he wants to be the old guy who still gets invited to frat parties. He’s a Hawaiian shirt come to life, and no matter how many “cool” terms he throws out that he either imported from his playing days or simply made up, it all makes the broadcast sound like one of the animatronic musicians at Chuck-E-Cheese trying to be hip. I’d rather listen to my brakes being realigned than Braden for nine innings. Thankfully, the A’s have provided a team no one on Earth has any interest in watching for nine innings.