I was playing The Show last night and realised that vitual Matt Vasgersian calls a MUCH better game than Rhadigan. When I am noticing a video game has a better play by play guy....thats pretty bad.

Letting Vic Rojas get away was a big mistake.

Sorry, Joe, but Rhadigan is not fine. I respect the hell out of most of your opinions on this site, but saying that he is fine is like saying that women's basketball is entertaining. It may be fun to watch if you have a connection to the team (I'm a Baylor alum, so I'll catch a couple of Lady Bears games during the season), but the fact is that there is a whole separate league of players whose performance is unmistakably better: the men's league. I'm not being sexist here, just observing... and maybe a little sick of hearing about how great the UCONN ladies' basketball team is.
Back to the point, Rhadigan is the broadcating version of women's basketball. Sure, he is much better than the typical person would be, and his blunders would likely go unnoticed by the average fan. But we baseball/Ranger fanatics know the basic (and complicated) rules of the game. We know what a homerun looks like when the ball comes off of Nelly's bat. We know this team inside and out. And we expect its primary broadcaster to know at least as much as we do. There IS a whole separate league of broadcasters out there (see, of course, Eric Nadel). And we are stuck with Maya Moore, when we could have had Kemba Walker.

And I never heard any justification of going with a guy that had no experience. I didn't hear many names thrown around - this should have been a highly sought-after competition. World Series appearance. Warm weather. Tax benefits. Great ballpark.

From a broadcaster's viewpoint, this has to be one of the 10 best jobs in baseball. Hiring a no-talent, no-experience local retread is unacceptable.

I'm not particularly displeased with Rhadigan. When a Ranger hits a homerun, the people in my house watching TV would drown out any awesome homerun call. I mean seriously, how does a "home run call" good or bad effect your viewing pleasure? I've noticed a few mistakes, etc... but nothing atrocious and nothing that he probably won't improve upon.

I'm not saying he's great, but (A) he's not terrible, and (B) he's starting week two of his job. He'll probably improve. (C) I'm more interested in the game than who's in the booth as long as they don't annoy me, and Rhadigan doesn't annoy me.. (D) If anything, TAG seems to be a little more talkative, and that's a good thing.

Now if you want bad, go and hire Rex Hudler do your color commentary.

lmao Rex Huddler

Those with an excessive need for a great TV caller are in need of a BASEBALL NANNY.

This is not the radio, you are watching the game yourself. I think Rhads will get better, but for the meantime I'm just thankful that he is not abrasive. He makes a lot of mistakes, sure, hes nervous, but I would take him over half the guys who call games for other teams any day. Most game callers sound horrible in their desperate attempts to entertain. Rhadigan does not annoy me at all. Even when he makes mistakes, whatever, who cares, you are watching the game yourself. Just get over it dudes....you are just looking for someone to crucify with all of your bull shit negativity.

BULL SHIT NEGATIVITY....just wait it out and he will get better. Whatever happens I'm just glad he doesn't sound like an ass$*#@.

Joe=John Rhadigan

Joe, do you ever think that since you are almost always alone in these 'arguments' that maybe you are the dumbass? You use bullshit (once in all caps), then censor asshole....makes sense.

Rhadigan sucks. I don't need a 'baseball nanny', I need to hear someone who at least knows the game as much as I do or I might as well turn off the sound and let my wife do play by play. David nailed it with the Maya Moore/Kemba Walker analogy.

I think Joe's censorship of "asshole" is his smart ass way of satisfying everyone who complained about him using that word in the opening post. I got a kick out of that as soon as I read the name of the person who posted it. I understand why you aren't being to hard on him during his first month on the job, but it's not our negativity that makes us point out his flaws. As soon as the news broke that Lewin was "leaving", I think we all expected Nadel to replace him. At the very least, we expected a step up from Lewin. I listened to 100+ games per season on the radio in the 90s and hearing him call the games nowadays is almost nostalgic for long time Rangers fans. I think our dissatisfaction with Rhadigan stems from not only disappointment that Nadel wasn't the replacement, but also from the fact that Rhadigan has been such a big step down from Lewin. Of course it won't keep us from watching the games, but it could be better...

+1 to Adam

Rhads is terrible, absolutely terrible. Will he get better? Maybe. But now he is terrible. Josh Lewin was great - they should have left well enough alone.

Why would Nadel become a TV caller? Radio is far better than TV and takes far more skill to call! Did he even apply for the job. Nadel is Nadel and he is a badass. He should just stay being a badass on the radio because that is what brings out his talent the most.

I don't particularly like Rhadigan, I just like that he is not abrasive. I'm not annoyed by him and that means A LOT to me.

I acknowledge that he hasn't been great, and who know, maybe he will never improve. I don't really care either way. What I do care about is NOT having an abrasive obnoxious desperate game caller trying to entertain me, as if the baseball isn't enough, desperately trying to say something interesting without the knowledge to back it up. That is the definition of most TV callers these days and I'm glad the Rangers don't have guys like that.

Tom Grieve and Eric Nadel are awesome anyways.We should be counting our blessings that we have two of the best game callers in baseball.

But Rhad DOESNT know wat hes talking about half the time.

I don't know if Nadel applied for the job. I wouldn't be surprised if the decision was actually influenced more by the network than it was the Rangers' front office. But whoever had the final say should have at least sought out Nadel to see if he was interested in the gig. Joe, you asked, "Why would Nadel become a TV caller?" I think he would do it because it would give him a chance to put his talent on display for a much larger audience.

Consider this for a moment, Joe: You have many great insights concerning the Rangers and baseball in general. You have a gift for evaluating future performance based on trends, business issues, and saber-metric statistics. You unselfishly decide to share these insights with 10 of your closest friends (who are also Ranger/baseball enthusiasts), so you write up a weekly article and email it to those friends. Then one of those friends suggests that you discontinue the emails and maintain an internet blog instead. Maybe you can't be as detailed on the blog as you could be in personal emails, but you can obviously reach more people on the blog and flex that literary muscle. So what do you do?

I think Rhads is bringing Tom down too, though. He sounds absolutely beaten half the time. Look - let's face it - what Rhads brings to the table - he should be doing a Jim Knox man in the crowd thing - that's what he's good at. He is not a play caller.

@Joe: "I don't particularly like Rhadigan, I just like that he is not abrasive. I'm not annoyed by him and that means A LOT to me."

Maybe we have different expectations. I would hope that a team in a top 5 media market coming off the greatest season in franchise history could do better than replacing a very high-quality baseball PBP guy with a local retread with no PBP experience.

I am a Rangers fan, and a Rangers customer, The Rangers should be catering to the fans...not the other way around. For many of us, it's frustrating to hear a no-talent assclown broadcast for our favorite team when the organization had all kinds of leverage needed to get a real PBP guy.

There is simply no excuse for Texas hiring a guy with no experience after their amazing 2010 season. Again - we shouldn't have to "give him time." Texas hired a guy with no experience - not us. Why should the fans be subjected to a guy learning on the job? That's what the minors are for.

And simply "not annoying you" is a ridiculously low standard for something that many of us spend 12+ hours each week watching.

Amen utb...it's clear that Joe's standards for a PBP guy is ridiculously low. The rest of us want a guy that knows at least as much as the average everyday fan, but can still bring some interesting information to the table and keep us interested in the game. We want him to help explain what's going on in a way that is similar to how we would react if we were there in person. A go-ahead double to the gap should evoke natural emotion and excitement from the PBP guy, not confuse him as to which gap it was hit into, what players head it went over, or whether it went over him or "through the wickets" or whatever rhadigan says.

Well put utb. I hate that we sound like a broken record but there is a game nearly every day and he has sucked in all of them. Hard to ignore...

Some people didn't like Lewin, but he was very professional, and respected enough in the business to get the Saturday afternoon gig with Mark Grace last season on one of the networks. He was a bit weird at times, but he was solid as a rock on his game-calling. Now, can you imagine Rhads with Mark Grace? LOL. By the way, what is Lewin doing these days, anyway?

Lewin has a show in 105.3. He's decent on there, but I would love to have him back in the booth at RBiA

I love rhadigan's panache. "He lines it into sssrightfield."

Put me in the 'wait and give him more time' camp. I think anyone making bold claims that Rhadigan does not know about baseball are a bit naive. He is at the very least as knowledgeable as the average fan, and probably much more so when it comes to this organizations recent history since he has followed the team from a professional standpoint for years now. His lack at the moment is his inability to be punctual with his calls and not imparting the right tonal importances at key times. I am only guessing, but like most jobs there is a time when the transition from where you have to think about to just feeling and reacting just takes time. Once he does not have to overthink everything, surely the end result will be better than it is now.

I still enjoy this years broadcast much more than the dog and pony show of Josh Lewin, the broadcast is much less pop culture regurgitation now, but even Lewin got better with each passing year. There is hope.

Can this thread die now?

@ Joe

Warren Buffett once said "If you've been sitting at the poker table for 20 minutes, and you haven't yet figured out who's the patsy, then you're the patsy."

Seems as though you are standing on a might soapbox here that's really just a matchbox, and you have a group standing tall on the tables and chairs around you.

Rhadican't is terrible. Last night he said one of the Angels' hitters had a .453 record on the road. A .453 RECORD!!!!!!! Not a .453 batting average.

Every fly ball he starts with, "That one's hit high." Then usually a 5 second pause: "And Deep" pause:::::: "And Gone" He has to wait to see what all the fielders are doing so he doesn't make a mistake on how well the ball is struck. His call of the epic Nellie Cruz oppo-upper decker was unimaginably bad. I've seen 2 balls ever hit that hard in that stadium: One was Josh's 496 foot blast into the upper deck last year (or the year before, can't remember), the other was when Carlos Delgado hit one to the back of the stadium down the right field line about 15 feet below what used to be Friday's Front Row. The fact that he fumbled that one killed it.

"Through the wickets" > Over his head
".453 record on the road" > .453 BA
"and it's out!!!!!" > 15 rows back and didn't know it was gonna go
"It's a full count" > It's 2-2, or, an even count if you will

I find it a little annoying that he has to announce the word base every time after first, second, and third. I really just hate his accent altogether, it's not Texas, it does slightly resemble something of a New England influence, and every Rangers fan hates every team from New England (or at least they should).

How after at least 30 games in the booth (including ST), he can't realize a "no doubter" and call it off the bat is beyond me. Remember when Josh hit that monster shot off of Oswalt last year? I swear the ball hadn't even touched the bat before Lewin came out with a "Uh, oh... He's done it again!" TAG was right there with him with his trademark "WOW!"

Rhadigan is a nice guy. I met him once, and I asked him what his call was going to be for every Ranger victory. You know what he responded with? "Well, I really haven't thought about that yet, I guess I can't say 'Ballgame' or 'Hello Win Column'". Come on dude, thats your trademark and a month and half before the season, you haven't even given thought to what you are going to say?