Local Announcers Can Be Homers? Shocking

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↵Steve Springer of the Los Angeles Times laid into the men in the Chavez Ravine booth for celebrating the Dodgers’ pennant-clinching win a little too gleefully during its local broadcast.↵↵⇥Sitting in their outfield perch, Steve Lyons, Kevin Kennedy and Jim Watson were literally toasting the Dodgers’ achievement, openly celebrating while pouring freely from a bottle we were assured was alcohol-free cider. Lyons even added an extra touch of homerism by wearing one of the division-champion caps handed out to the players. Guess he didn’t have time to run down and get the full Dodgers uniform. [...]
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↵⇥What’s wrong with a little hometown loyalty? Nothing, except a loss of credibility. Fans might love being fans, but they want to be informed fans. If they want inspiration, they’ll go to a pep rally. If they want information, they go to the media.↵↵FanHouse’s Eamonn Brennan has a good stance on this. In all honesty, who expects pure objectivity from the hometown announcing crew? These guys are basically team employees (they are actually team employees in some cases); of course they’ll be excited when their guys win. The only issue in which objectivity is needed is when the broadcaster has information which affects the game: announcers owe it to fans to disseminate injuries or blow-outs between players and coaches. (In other words, don’t carry water for the team.)
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↵But these local broadcasters are, for the most part, talking to partisan fans. Dodgers fans don’t want cold descriptions when their team wins the division. Fans want someone to mirror their own excitement. It’s different for national broadcasts, because the announcer is talking to both fan bases. But at the local level, homerism is and should be the norm. (If L.A. closes up its NLDS series over the Cubs tonight, imagine how silly the booth will get.)
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