It’s true, and we have to agree: The Sunday Cardinal games aired on KSDK (channel 5) are easily the worst out of the four broadcast entities that air Cardinals games. (The other three being, Fox, ESPN and of course Fox Sports Midwest)
A quick Twitter scan on the subject quickly returned thoughts like these:
I wouldn’t be upset if they moved all their games to cable like the Blues.
Other than Randolph’s “confused old guy” routine and Horton’s “washed-up average ex-player” bit, what is not to like?
It has always seemed to us that KSDK was so obsessed on getting the Cardinals Sunday games away from KPLR they completely forgot to plan accordingly on how to actually broadcast the games.
The most obvious part to pick on is the broadcast team of Jay Randolph and Rick Horton. Although, admittedly we can’t pick on one specific thing that doesn’t work, our complaint is more of an all over “this isn’t working” kind of feel. Randolph seems to be there just to get to that inning where they bring in Mike Shannon to create the single oldest and confusing broadcast team of all time. Add to that Horton, who feels like he’s just keeping the seat from floating away until they can find someone better than will work for the same price. Don’t even get us started on the Frank Cusumano “man in the stands” bit that apparently only exists because KSDK thinks that what you are supposed to do these days (also see the Ken Rosenthal experiment on Fox proper’s baseball coverage).
Add to their broadcasting issues the constant overlap of NBC’s national sports converage that always seems to leave some sporting fan segment out in the cold. Whether it be cutting away from major golf events for a pre-game show or relegating one of the most competitive tennis matches to a small box in the corner of a blowout Cardinals game, KSDK has left no sports fan un-pissed off.
We would be happy if the Sunday broadcasts went the cable route like the rest of the games, but if the Cardinals want something different for their Sunday broadcasts, just put a damn camera in with John Rooney and Mike Shannon. Sure Shannon is probably even crazier and more out of it than even Randolph, but at least he’s managed to make himself in to an institution.