Home / Cincinnati Reds / Marty Brennaman tells it like it is!

Marty Brennaman tells it like it is!

By on May 6, 2008
“And I’ll tell you what; I’ve never seen a sorrier bunch than this (fill in the blank with current Reds team) Cincinnati Reds team.”

A very good friend of mine and I like to often mock Marty Brennaman or after the Reds make a brutal play in the field, or you know; fail to get in a single run after loading the bases with no one out, we always ask ‘wonder what Marty thinks about it’. And we know what Marty thinks about it. With every year that passes on the calendar Marty Brennaman gets nastier and surlier. He acts as if it’s his given birth right that he gets to watch a championship Reds squad like the 1975 Big Red Machine. He hates his job as the voice of the Cincinnati Reds. And something else you better remember while listening, it’s Marty’s fucking show. Get in the way, you might get stepped on.

And that’s why I took a liking to someone else noticing.

Five minutes later I was in the garage with a drill in my hand listening to the Braves and Reds on the radio. This was actually OK, because my first exposure to baseball was over the radio, and I often forget how enjoyable it is to listen to a game on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately, I was listening to Marty Brennaman, and that poor bastard has simply lost it. Look, we all hate to listen to homer announcers, and we all find it refreshing when the guys in the booth tell the tough truths. Brennaman, however, is long past that stage and is deep into angry and bitter disgust with the Redlegs. Sure, the seven-run second inning would be tough on anyone, but Brennaman made it sound like he was being forced to watch the commission of war crimes. He sounds like a man who truly hates his job, and truly hates the Reds. As a Braves fan enjoying the pasting I should have been reveling in just how bent out of shape he was, but I was mostly just embarrassed for him. Perhaps the most telling thing was the fact that I was actually happy when Jeff Brantley took over next inning. It was so discombobulating that I plan to blame Brennaman when the new shelves come crashing down on the Volvo next winter.

Sounds about right. Marty Brennaman has become a bitter old man. Sure, he’s a Hall of Famer and he will always live in our hearts with his calls like ‘This one Belongs to the Reds’ after every Redleg victory, but the fact of the matter is that fans all over the country are taking notice that the voice of our poor makeshift ball club is a real sour ass.

When you tune into the game on the radio, you do so because you want it to be fun listening no matter what the score. Not so you can hear an old man with zero career at-bats tell you how it should be done better. Sure the Reds are lousy, and we get that. We just don’t need our play by play man going off his rocker every time a ball escapes leather.

Maybe we were just spoiled all those years with Joe Nuxhall asleep at the wheel, God rest his soul.

Related Items