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For a long time, the Dodgers have exemplified class and professionalism in baseball broadcasting. No team in baseball history has ever put together a better collection of baseball announcers. From Red Barber in Brooklyn, to Vin Scully who was named "Sportscaster of the Century" by the American Broadcasters Association, the Dodgers have aired the cream of the crop. Even their secondary announcers, guys like Jerry Doggett, Don Drysdale, Ross Porter, and Rick Monday, were all in the top-tier of baseball announcers. We all bemoaned the firing of Ross Porter, but that pill was made slightly easier to swallow when a quality announcer in Charley Steiner took his place.
This glorious broadcasting made yesterday's news that the Dodgers were hiring Steve Lyons all the more upsetting.
Steve "Psycho" Lyons is one of the worst color commentators in all of sports. He is a sportscaster who strives to be goofy more than insightful. His comments often reflect a severe lack of thought. He sounds like an idiot. He isn't funny. He adds nothing of value to a broadcast. He brings in no new listeners. And every third broadcast on FOX, you see a clip of his famous pants-dropping incident in a baseball game during his lackluster career.
Adding to Lyons' idiocy, were the insensitive commentshe made about Shawn Green missing a game on Yom Kippur, which earned him a suspension from FOX. Lyons said: "He's not a practicing Jew. He didn't marry a Jewish girl. And from what I understand, he never had a bar mitzvah, which is unfortunate because he didn't get the money."
Lyons also has a pending sexual assaultand battery charge case coming up next month in L.A. Superior Court from a woman who filed a suit after an incident in Maui in 2002.
Way to go Lon Rosen. You're killing Dodger broadcasts.
