99% baseball radio guys have switched to shrill chirpiness

This obviously is someone's idea of a good thing, but they're all unlistenable except Joe Angel of the Orioles and one of the Pirates' guys, whose name I don't know. The worst are the Mets radio guys, ear-splitting high decibel shrieks every other syllable--I timed it. Someone thought this would make the game sound exciting or make the guys sound like they had a personality.

• This is a foreground format to begin with. Most of us are listening very closely. You can't put on a voice that splits my eardrums--it's common sense. Mostly these guys are just listening to the sound of their own voice to begin with.

I figured out who Chris Singleton sounds like-- the White Sox junior partner to Ed Farmer...BEAVER CLEAVER! The halting, high-pitch delivery sounds like a little boy, and I've even heard him sneeze all over the booth.

• Last night when Nick Punto hit a homerun, Ed said, "you can't tell me that ball he hit wasn't juiced," it has to be a different kind of ball than the others. "I'm saying that because it's Punto and it's his first homerun of the year." Farmer later says, "And nobody can tell me the balls they use at the All Star game aren't juiced, either." I'm not sure if he mentioned the home run derby and the game separately--he was speaking quickly and it was hard to tell. (Singleton of course said that made sense).
• Tonight, Sandy Alomar Jr. hit his first homerun of the season (I looked it up and he hadn't had one with the Dodgers either). It was the 5th inning, and Ed Farmer had stepped out of the booth, so Chris Singleton was doing play by play. Singleton did not say the ball must've been juiced, but I waited for Farmer to come back to the booth to see what he said.
• In the next half inning, Farmer did not say the Alomar homerun we just saw, his first of the season, was hit because the ball was juiced. I tuned in periodically after that--I can't listen to the ear-splitting screechiness--so I don't know if Farmer eventually passed judgment on the juiciness of the Alomar homerun.

Unrelated to this, I remember Ray Miller when manager of the Orioles several years back saying,"If I had Mariano Rivera, I'd be smart." Just remember that.

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