Rex Hudler and Jeff Spicoli
Watching the Red Sox do their best imitation of the Bad News Bears over the last few days has been made even more difficult being forced to listen to Angel television announcers Steve Physioc and Rex Hudler.
Steve Physioc, the Angels’ play by play announcer, might be bearable if he lacked the tendency to make every hit, catch, or run scored sound as if the Angels had just scored the winning run in the 7th game of the World Series.
For color man Rex Hudler the outlook is much worse. The few comments that make sense sound as if he believes he’s broadcasting to school children. After watching David Ortiz take a deep breath before stepping into the batter’s box he remarked that doing so relaxed the batter and that this was one secret of the best hitters.
Most of his comments, however, make little sense, are simply wrong, or rely on his magical ability to get into a player’s head and tell us what he’s thinking. When discussing Angel losses to the Red Sox earlier in the year he brushed them off saying “games in May don’t mean as much as games in August”, as if games won now count for two games in the standings instead of the earlier one.
Hudler seemed so disconnected to the game and his comments so bizarre that at times I wondered if he was high. Not knowing much about Hudler I checked out his page on wikipedia. I learned two things:
1. Hudler is known for making ignorant comments.
“[Zito pitched well] though he has a chance not to win this game.”
”Mike [Scioscia] likes to turn Benjie loose though so he doesn’t get on base and clog the bases.”
2. My initial thought that Hudler sounded high might not be too far off the mark. At the very least, lasting side effects are a definite possibility.
Perhaps if I imagine his comments coming from the mouth of Jeff Spicoli they’ll be more palpable. At the very least, they’ll make more sense.
