Everybody hates Chris

There are a lot of things Phillies fans disagree on. For example, some people don’t think Bobby Abreu is good. (They’re wrong, of course, but that’s a discussion for another time.) But there is one thing all Phillies fans can agree on: Harry Kalas is awesome, and Chris Wheeler sucks.

I don’t really dislike Wheeler all that much — I don’t think he reaches the levels of announcer annoyance of Joe Morgan or the old Sunday Night ESPN crew — but I don’t know anyone who really enjoys his announcing. Some people think he’s too negative; some people think he’s too positive. Bill Conlin said he hasn’t gotten any positive emails about Wheels. Not to turn this into a Bill Simmons column, but my buddy Tim said he got a reply from DN writer Paul Hagen saying he had gotten deluged with email bashing Wheeler. And check out the comments on Jason Weitzel’s post over at Beerleaguer. In reality, Wheeler can’t win.

Harry Kalas, on the other hand, is beloved by all. Sure, he’s not as good as he used to be, but, man, what a voice! (He also does NFL highlights during the fall.) And when an announcer has been with a team for so long, you sort of have to keep him there and let him do what he wants.

After last year’s dwindling attendance, the Phillies hired former Action News reporter Scott Palmer to act as an ombudsman between the fans and team management, hoping he could iron out any problems. And then earlier this month, Palmer was officially named director of media and public affairs.

And what is his first fan-pleasing job? To figure out how to solve the tentative announcing lineup which has pissed off fans from Broad and Pattison to Scranton. The new lineup? Harry the K on TV in the first through third and seventh through ninth innings. Larry Anderson only on radio. Chris Wheeler on television all nine innings.

Yikes. Good luck with all that, Scott.

And if he can’t figure out a way to make this work and Harry leaves after this year, it’s okay. We’ll still have Harry doing announcing work on things even more important than the Phillies:

Yes, that’s Harry Kalas announcing Puppy Bowl II.

Kalas outta here? [DN]
Bill Conlin | Still wild about Harry (Kalas) [DN]
Harry in the headlines [Beerleaguer]

Blogicized: Prime Meridian

• Fifteen years ago this Wednesday, One Meridian Plaza went up in flames, killing three firefighters. And today, construction began on a replacement condo tower (what else). Glad to see everyone worked really quickly on this one, really. [Changing Skyline]

• Instead of vetoing bad legislation — I mean, really, if you needed an ID to vote there’s absolutely no way I would remember it, and absolutely no way I would go back to the polling place after going home to pick it up, and I’m not that much more forgetful or lazy than the rest of the general population — wouldn’t it be awesome if he could just eat the bills? Oh, man, he’d totally clinch up re-election right then and there. [ACLU's Speaking Freely]

• The Phillies’ secret weapon for next year isn’t a front-line pitcher. (That would make too much sense.) It’s former newsman Scott Palmer, the Phillies’ newest PR guy. Start the parade down Broad Street! [PhilliesNation]

• And let’s do some more Attytood love, since it’s a very slow Presidents’ Day: When Will Bunch just tears into his own paper — even if it is just one of the columnists (and Christine Flowers at that) — we should all thank God for the Internet, free speech, snark and American journalism. [Attytood]