Saw this posted this afternoon..
The Rangers today announced that the club has signed Tom Grieve to a three-year contract extension as the club’s television analyst on Fox Sports Southwest and TXA21. The new agreement carries Grieve, who has been on the team’s telecasts since 1995, through the 2013 season.
It was also announced that television play-by-play announcer Josh Lewin will not return for 2011.
“After several discussions over the last few months, the Texas Rangers and Josh Lewin have agreed to end their relationship and move ahead in different directions,” club president Nolan Ryan said in a news release. “As a result, Josh will not be returning as the Rangers television announcer in 2011. We wish Josh the very best for the future.”
“I would like to thank the Rangers for nine wonderful years,” said Lewin. “I respect the team’s leadership and vision and wish them nothing but the best as well.”
Lewin has been on Rangers’ telecasts since 2002. The club will immediately begin its search for a play-by-play broadcaster to work with Grieve on the Fox Sports Southwest and TXA21 telecasts.
A few thoughts on this..
A couple of years ago when the last round of TV broadcast negotiations happened, there was a stink made about the Rangers not being happy with Lewin being gone so much for his other duties as the Saturday Fox baseball correspondent, as well as his NFL duties. At the time it was negotiated to him not doing Fox anymore (unless it was a Rangers game) and keeping the Chargers games. This time around, it wouldn’t surprise me if he was asked to give up the football stuff too and do 162 with the Rangers, and he declined. I never liked the split duties like that, I preferred the team broadcasters to stay, not shuffle around like that.
While I liked a lot of Josh’s personality, the constant forays into irrelevant stuff bothered me. Josh’s predecessor (Bill Jones) proved that to make Tom Grieve work well, you need a personality that brings stuff out of Tom. Bill didn’t do that. Josh did. However, Josh could go too far, so I’m hoping the innings full of shoutouts to people who send food to the booth will stop. That was getting a bit stupid at the end of the season, I don’t care about who brought you food. I really don’t. Stop that. I don’t lay all that blame at Josh, it’s Tom too, but I’m hoping the irrelevant talk dies down with someone new.
Also, a few years ago when Victor Rojas left, the scuttlebutt was that he wanted to go to the TV side, and they had just extended Lewin at that time, so Rojas left. He spent a year at MLB Network, and then went back in 2010 to do Angels TV stuff. If it were up to me, we’d buy out Rojas’ contract, and bring him back to be the Rangers TV guy! I miss Vic. A lot. Vic had a style of telling you what you thought, and that appealed to me – a lot.
And while I’m going off on the broadcast people, we need to get rid of Jim Knox. I have never liked this guy since Day 1, and it hasn’t gotten any better. Lewin’s call of “We go to Jim Knox” means “hit the fast forward on the TiVo – no matter what is happening on screen”. Promote Emily Jones or something. PLEASE! PLEASE! And take Ric Renner with you. That’s another guy who means an immediate fast forward when he shows up. GAH!
I’m also not a fan of Dave Barnett, either. I don’t actively dislike him, and I can’t give you a concrete reason why, but he never gelled with me. With both Vince Cotroneo & Victor Rojas before him, the radio guy working with Eric Nadel took a year or so to get used to. I liked Vince when we parted ways, I REALLY liked Victor when we parted ways. I still have not gotten used to Dave Barnett. I’m not actively campaigning for his dismissal, but I wouldn’t mind a change there. Just don’t promote Barnett to TV. Egad – that would be a bad move.
The bottom line is I want the Rangers to bring back Victor Rojas for play by play with the Rangers and get rid of Jim Knox. Beyond that I don’t have any concrete answers as to who else. I also like Scott Franzke, we shouldn’t have let him go either, but that was more KRLD’s fault than anything else.
I agree with you on all of this – but with one addition. I would LOVE to see Busby go to the radio side. He’s always good on TV but I think he works really well with Eric and they make a great team. Honestly, I’d be happy either way, but I think he’d be the best fit on the radio.
I loved watching the Ranger games, win or lose, mainly because I loved listening to Josh Lewin. I thought he was extremely funny and quick witted. Tom Grieve does not have much of a sense of humor but Josh was able to bring out the best in him. If they hire another boring announcer to announce with Tom Grieve it will be painful. I think the Rangers made a HUGE mistake, at least in my book they did.