Milton Bradley Shows All Analysts How Delicate that Role Is
by Jay Pearlman
Those of you who read this space know that I follow the Colonial Athletic Association from a courtside seat at Northeastern’s games, as Bill Coen’s radio analyst. I often acknowledge – including to Bill – that I was just an assistant and never a head coach, but heck, Billy Packer was also “just” an assistant. Putting aside the head coach/assistant coach distinction, watching these NBA Finals demonstrates most clearly the coach/non-coach distinction. A terrific and over-achieving player at St. John’s and in the NBA (and second all-time in NBA assists), Mark Jackson tells us rather obvious things, often raising the decibel level to emphasize particularly obvious points. (I’m not a big fan of the Knicks’ Walt Frazier’s “rumblin’ and bumblin’ and stumblin'” style of analysis, but Jackson didn’t need to show disdain when Mike Breen quoted Clyde during the last pregame).
My point is made by the contrast with Jeff Van Gundy. Jeff tells us what the coach is thinking, what he’s really concerned about, what he’s really demanding of his players, the officials, himself. He truly coaches on television, doesn’t hold back, shares his knowledge, a piece of himself. His voice needs a bit more training (it’s already better than when he first did television), but from a content point of view, he gives more on NBA games than anyone else, with the single exception of venerable Hubie Brown. While Doug Collins is fun, cute, makes you laugh, and makes the game fun in his own way, respectfully Jeff gives us much more meat that Doug does.
On the subject of Hubie Brown, the acknowledged dean of NBA analysts, for the second year in a row, along with Mike Tirico Hubie can be heard on the ESPN Radio broadcasts of the Finals. And as great as Hubie is, that’s a shame. It’s about power and politics that Tirico’s team gets the assignment for the Finals, supplanting ESPN Radio’s regular A-team of Jim Durham (former Bulls announcer, and the greatest basketball radio play-by-play man of all time) and even more venerable Jack Ramsey. Jim and “Dr. Jack” have earned that seat courtside at the Finals (and I’d sure enjoy Hubie somewhere on TV, either sitting next to Van Gundy or as a halftime analyst). Oh, well, that’s politics. I do miss Durham’s staccato minimalist style when I’m in the car listening to Tirico on the Finals, but I’ll get over it. Also, I’ve had the pleasure of working with two other top ten play-by-play men who share that minimalist style, Dave Jageler and Brad Sham, and hopefully will get more of both in the years to come.
But that’s not what I set out to write about. Readers of this space know I view it to be an analyst’s role, and not a play-by-play announcer’s, to tell you his opinions, generally about how, why, and what next. The play-by-play announcer should never begin a sentence with “I think,” because he doesn’t have the credentials to tell us what he thinks; stick to the names, the uniform numbers, and the score. He also doesn’t have the credentials to respond to the analyst with “that’s true, Jay,” as such a comment implies that he has the credentials to weigh-in on the subject, and also that he could just as easily have said “I don’t think that’s true, Jay.” My response (rather harsh) is: what you think about such and such is irrelevant, and you should keep your non-expert opinions to yourself. (I haven’t ever said precisely that on the air, but I expect you can tell that I’m not generally all that subtle).
A couple of years ago, when I was the radio analyst for Frank Sullivan’s teams at Harvard, I found myself in Princeton, New Jersey spending two-thirds of a day getting to know long-time Ivy League Commissioner Jeff Orleans at his office. Jeff is a wonderful man, was a high-powered lawyer (Yale Law School), but is even better suited to steer the ship we know as Ivy League athletics, which he has done incredibly well through treacherous seas for over a quarter century. Jeff is the rarest of people, a true intellectual, not motivated to maximize his income, and really believes in all of those participatory, educational and egalitarian ideals that constitute the backbone of Ivy sports. (I confess that Jeff believes in that stuff way more than I do.) Anyway, after chatting most of the morning, Jeff turned to me and asked matter-of-factly, “So tell me about you as Harvard’s basketball analyst, are you just a shill for the athletic department and the coach?”
Well, it didn’t take me long to answer proudly that I wasn’t, that my listeners would confirm that I am evenhanded in talking about the teams, the coaches, and the officials, that those listeners have heard more than once when I felt the home team was the beneficiary of a poor call by an official. Then I added that in college rather than the NBA, and in the non-scholarship Ivy League rather than the Big East, the analyst role is delicate, as I don’t want to criticize the players, and certainly don’t want to cross a line where criticism becomes in any way personal.
Agreeing that such a position is reasonable, Jeff took the conversation where he had wanted it to go, and asked me about making comments that might be less than complimentary of the coaches, even of the home coach, pointing out that coaches are no longer teenagers and are paid relatively well for their efforts. I admitted that puts me in a conflicted position, in at least two ways. First, if I criticize my team’s coach (and assuming anyone is even out there listening), well it will get back to the coach, his wife, the athletic director, or someone like that, and I won’t be the radio analyst next season (heck, if I’m critical enough, I won’t be the analyst for the next game). Second, and my bigger conflict, my head coach – then and now – is my friend, and I’m just not inclined to go on the radio in Boston and criticize my friend. “So you are a shill, just like the rest of them,” Jeff said with a smile.
These are hard issues, philosophical issues, make no mistake. They’re also business issues, as whatever number of radio and television opportunities are in store for me in the future, well that future would not be well-served by me being fired by Harvard two years ago, or by Northeastern now.
That brings me to much-traveled Milton Bradley, now of the Texas Rangers. At least as reported by the Associated Press, during last night’s broadcast, Royals television analyst Ryan Lefebvre, son of former Dodger Jim Lefebvre, commented that while Josh Hamilton of the Rangers – who missed a number of seasons due to cocaine and alcohol abuse – “has turned his life around and has been accountable for his mistakes… It doesn’t seem that Milton Bradley has done the same thing in his life.” (How being the son of a major leaguer establishes the credentials necessary to be a television analyst is a story best left for another day). Well, these comments appear to have been made during the post-game show, Bradley heard them on a TV in the clubhouse, and when he sprinted in the direction of the broadcast booth to confront Lefebvre, it took his manager and general manager to within feet of the destination to catch Bradley, and dissuade him from doing something that wouldn’t have benefited either Lefebvre or Bradley.
This points out just how delicate all this is. By my words, tone of voice, what I choose to say and what I pass over, invariably I’m communicating value judgments, some at the very least less positive than others. A good example is Matt Janning, Northeastern’s best player the past year and a half, and a good kid from a good family. I wouldn’t consider myself “friends” with Matt (I’m thirty years his senior), but we like one another, respect one another, in some ways support one another. At one road game last year, I had Matt’s father – a gentleman – on as a halftime guest. But having called two years of Matt’s games, surely one time or another there was a bad shot taken, a lack of attention on defense, a silly foul, and knowing me I probably pointed it out. Heck, I’m one of those guys that puts more pressure on people who can shoulder it, so on nights that Northeastern lost, even if Matt scored 20, grabbed 10 boards, and held his man down, I might well have focused on one thing he didn’t do that determined the outcome. When they’re not in town, I’m sure Matt’s parents are listening to the internet stream of our broadcasts. Matt’s friends on campus probably listen to road games on the radio, as do lots of other folks too. Trust me when I say that there’s no faster way to learn that people are listening than to say something critical about someone; that person will know what was said before they leave the arena, in fact know it better than I’ll remember it.
I don’t have a precise answer, either for Ryan Lefebvre or me. I hope I don’t talk about our players who I may perceive haven’t performed well in their personal lives, but I work in college, not in Major League Baseball. I know I’ve said that certain Huskies are too slow to guard certain opponents, that such and such is hurting the team out there, that such and such doesn’t know the team’s offense, etc. And by implication, when a substitute comes in and plays better than a starter, by saying so I am criticizing the starter. All very delicate.
As I sometimes write in this space, I grew up listening to Ralph Kiner on Mets telecasts, and got the idea that Ralph knew everything, but wouldn’t criticize anyone. So throughout his career he’s been general, vague, gentle, and only positive. Ralph is the person who taught Tim McCarver his craft (and I think it’s pretty clear that Tim is the greatest baseball TV analyst of all time), and then Tim took it beyond where Ralph would go, criticizing Davey Johnson, Bobby Valentine, and later George Steinbrenner. Every night of Bobby Valentine’s managerial career in New York, Tim told the masses that the Mets played their outfield too deep. Eventually Bobby had enough, and caused Tim’s firing. But the masses want criticism, want controversy, want to hear announcers complain about officials and managers, and the networks want ratings, so there will always be a job for brilliant and highly entertaining Tim McCarver. And for loose cannon (and also bright) Bill Walton too, who coaches fear even more than they do McCarver due to his unpredictability.
In doing my job, I can often tell from a player or parent that I’ve said something taken as criticism (doubtless that’s the reason when a yearlong warm smile is replaced by a stiff upper lip). I hope I haven’t said anything that would cause a Milton Bradley type to sprint over to courtside during our post-game. And since I’ve used him as an example, you can probably tell I don’t think I’ve said too many things that could generate anger from the Janning family.
So to answer Jeff Orleans’ question, I guess I am a shill when compared to McCarver and Walton, less of one when compared to Kiner. It’s a fine line, a delicate line to walk, and I have no better answer either for Ryan Lefebvre or for myself.
