Bob Costas vs. Al Michaels

[JoeMcKim]

Which of these play-by-play announcers do you view as the best pbp announcer in all of sports?

[Joe Shlabotnik]

Costas.

[robbotis]

Costas is the best at everything he does, football, Olympics, HBO Sports, and especially talking baseball.
He really should be the next commissioner.

[TabascoElvis]

I was hoping this thread was about a pay-per-view cage match to the death and Costas gets bats and chains and guns and stuff and Michaels gets swim fins and a Hello Kitty snuggie. Can't stand him anymore. And I really am not a fan of Costas on Sunday night football either.

[lukethedrifter]

Neither. My feelings on Costas are summed up in my review of the roundtable discussion on the future of sports featuring him, Joe Pos, Bill James and Gerald Early last winter.

Joe Pos has said he's going to write a blog post this week recapping and commenting on the night, for those of us who missed it.

I could do that for him.

Great crowd.
Too much Costas.
Not great questions from McCambridge.
Not enough talking about the actual future (>20yrs) if you ask me.
Joe Pos was fantastic and funny.
Not enough Gerald Early telling stories.
Bill James thinks MLB games take way too long and it will be easy to fix.
Too much Costas.
Bill James is still a contrarian and not very loquacious.
Would have loved for Gladwell to have been seated onstage as well.


I really would loved to have had it been a dinner conversation that I was involved in.

[PurdueSTL]

Costas.

Agreed....

I find Michaels' inability to pronounce the words "ball" (it comes out all nasally-congested "buoul" and "Houston" ("YEW-ston") to be like fingernails on the blackboard...

[jim]

Not a fan of Al Michaels. Pretty much the worst announcer in sports imo. Just a whiny nerdy sounding guy that I can't stand.

[ndistops]

Michaels is awesome. Costas is awesome. At gunpoint I'd take Michaels. Costas is a better storyteller, but I think Michaels is a better straight-up announcer.

[Richie Allen]

Yeah, I like them both too.

[Popeye_Card]

For strictly play-by-play, I'm going to go outside the box here and select Marv Albert.