In defense of Steigerwald
TMC
Monday, May 02, 2011 01:30 AM Written by Bob Smizik
Although it’s never good for someone in my position to admit something
like this, I don’t watch a lot of hockey during the regular season.
It’s no secret hockey is not my favorite sport. But I watched most of
the Penguins post-season on television and came away wondering this:
Why are there so many attacks on the broadcasting skills of Paul
Steigerwald, the TV voice of the Penguins? It's always open season on
Steigerwald among hockey fans.
After the Penguins seven games with the Tampa Bay Lightning, my
opinion of Steigerwald remains as it long has been: He's good at what
he does. He follows the action well and conveys the excitement of the
moment, when necessary. He is extremely knowledgeable, is pleasant
enough and has a good on-air rapport with color analyst Bob Errey.
So what’s the problem?
It’s this: He is following a legend and as such is getting the Milo
Hamilton treatment by Pittsburgh fans.
Hamilton is the man who succeeded Bob Prince in 1977. He had nothing
to do with the firing of Prince but many fans attached him to it and
never gave him a chance. Hamilton was good enough at his craft to land
jobs in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Chicago and Houston. Not many announcers
can say that. But Pirates fans would have you believe this highly
competent, highly professional man was the epitome of ineptitude.
And that’s the reason, it would appear, that Steigerwald is so badly
battered by some fans. He succeeded Mike Lange.
Like Prince, Lange is a Pittsburgh legend. But Steigerwald’s situation
is even worse than Hamilton’s because whereas Prince went away after
being fired, Lange is still around doing the radio broadcasts. Fans
can’t forget Lange and because of that can’t forgive Steigerwald.
That’s too bad. In my dealings with Steigerwald, he’s a good guy. I’ve
never come across a play-by-play announcer in Pittsburgh who works the
locker rooms of both teams as hard as Steigerwald. He’s fully prepared
and fully competent.
Is he Doc Emrick? No. Few are. But, with all respect, he’s plenty good
enough for Pittsburgh.
The one complaint I most hear about Steigerwald is that he and Errey
are homers. Now there’s some breaking news. That's part of the job.
Bob Prince and Myron Cope were homers. Bill Hillgrove is a homer. It's
expected. I’ve seen no extremism in Steigerwald’s homerism. It’s
normal, run of the mill.
Probably the lowest thing said about Steigerwald is that he helped
orchestrate Lange’s removal as TV voice of the Penguins in June of
2006.
Right! Steigerwald was controlling both the Penguins and FSN to the
extent he got one of the most popular broadcasters in Pittsburgh
sports history fired. That’s ridiculous.
Lange was fired for three reasons:
* His performance had slipped.
* He was making too much money.
* He was difficult to work with.
That’s a tough trio of liabilities to overcome and when his contact
expired, FSN Pittsburgh decided to sever ties with Lange.
One thing needs to be stressed. There is no way FSN would have fired
Lange without the consent of its partner, the Penguins. The team came
away from the firing with clean hands, but it would not have gone down
unless the Penguins said it was OK.
And it was. Lange and Steigerwald switched job.
The shock of being fired and not being able to land another TV job
elsewhere, jolted Lange back into improved work habits. What helped
even more is that he’s better on radio.
But the job Steigerwald is doing today is better than the job Lange
was doing in 2006.
As long as Lange and Steigerwald are both calling Penguins games, fans
will clamor for Lange’s return to the TV booth. I doubt that will
happen. There’s no reason for it to happen.
BoosDad
"TMC" <tmc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
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I don't care who takes over the TV broadcasts - as long as it's not Lange.
He's very knowledgeable and does his job well, but in person is a
condescending, arrogant, asshat who is so full of himself, he thinks he's
personally responsible for the Penguin's success over the years. Most people
who have to work with him hate his guts. I have met him twice (once in the
early nineties and a year ago) and both times he was a complete asshole.
Fuck Lange. You'd think with all of the money he has made over the years,
he'd be able to afford to have those rotted Chiclets pulled from his rancid
pie hole and replace them with a decent set of dentures.
As far as Steiggy is concerned, he is a bit too much of a homer and tends to
repeat himself over and over and over again in a broadcast once he's wrapped
his mind around some insignificant notion. He's a bit annoying, but then
again, so is Borkie's lisp.
Errey gets all wound up at times and tends to scream for no apparent reason,
but he's probably taken his fair share of head shots over his career, so
I'll give him the benefit of the doubt on that account.