The Camden Chat reports the announcement from the team focused only on the pared down group retained for 2021. In alphabetical order by last name: Geoff Arnold, Kevin Brown, Scott Garceau, Brett Hollander, Rob Long, Ben McDonald, Melanie Newman, and Jim Palmer.
This is a significantly smaller group than the one that was optimistically announced in the middle of February last year, before anyone knew that the pandemic was going to completely upend the season. Gary Thorne and Jim Hunter are out, as well as longtime Baltimore sports guy Tom Davis, and former Orioles Mike Bordick, Rick Dempsey, Gregg Olson, and Brian Roberts.
The team’s announcement does not address any of the departures except for Dempsey and Roberts, which it notes “will continue to serve as Community Ambassadors.” I would be less than pleased with the role shift if I was either one of those guys. I’ve enjoyed Roberts’s commentary since he started doing games, so for him to be out in this way is a bummer as well. It stinks for everyone who was unceremoniously dumped in this way, but especially so for all of the people who never got to take up a mic in 2020 due to the pandemic.
Thorne and Orioles fans both deserved better than to have him gone from the airwaves without any more notice than this. Even Hunter, who I was less a fan of, deserves better than to be shuffled off in favor of Garceau, who was not a positive addition to the broadcasts when he joined in 2020 after a nearly three decade layoff from calling baseball games.
MASN’s announcement includes a quote from the network’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and General Sales Manager, John McGuinness.
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