On Sports Media | Gumbel's move to play–by–play was a bad call

0 Comments | Philadelphia Inquirer, The, December, 2006 | by Marc Narducci

In television, how something is said is almost as important as what is said. An announcer can sell a good play with an exciting call, or make a memorable one appear drab with a less-than-enthralling description. A good play-by-play announcer is like a baseball umpire. The less you notice the person often means the better the job being done.

In that respect, Bryant Gumbel has failed horribly in his venture as a play-by-play man for the NFL Network. When Gumbel, a high-profile personality, was chosen for the job, he told anybody within hearing distance that he hadn't done play-by-play since well before his days of becoming a star studio host, first in sports, then in news. Nearly everybody, including Gumbel, downplayed his relative lack of play-by-play experience. As Gumbel...