It’s down to the final four in Awful Announcing’s 32-person contest to decide who will succeed former Sunday Night Baseball announcer Joe Morgan on AA’s Mt. Rushmore of awful announcers, joining Pam Ward, Dick Vitale and Tim McCarver. On one side of the bracket we have Chris Berman versus Craig James, and on the other we have Colin Cowherd versus Joe Buck. (Is Cowherd really an announcer? He hosts an ESPN radio show and SportsNation, two programs that are eminently avoidable. He doesn’t cover live sporting events. That’s not to say he’s not awful, but he’s awful for other reasons.)
I think we can trace James’ presence in the final four to the controversy involving ESPN college football writer Bruce Feldman, who was “not” suspended by ESPN for ghostwriting Mike Leach’s new book, Swing Your Sword, which was highly critical of ESPN’s coverage of Leach’s ouster at Texas Tech — a falling out that was directly related to Leach’s alleged treatment of James’ son, Adam.
Voting for the semifinals ends Wednesday.