I know this has probably been talked to death in other arenas, but I'm not afraid to beat a dead horse. Since the 2004 season saw the loss of the venerable Greg Papa because the A's "felt it was time to make a change in his position in order to bring a different feel to our broadcasts." So, the A's succeeded in bringing in a different feel, but it's not an improvement. Since Papa left, the A's have been hobbling along with Hank Greenwald, whom I like to call the donut spare tire of the A's broadcasting booth. Yes, he gets you from point A to B, but he doesn't do it very well. You can't drive above 50MPH on him and... well I guess this is where the analogy loses a little something.

That being said, there has actually been somewhat of an upside to Bill King not being able to travel with the team. I found that I definitely like Greenwald more on the radio. Some part of this can probably be attributed to the fact that I believe that part of his problem is that he just hasn't gotten used to the fact that there was no need to call the play-by-play (it's TV, we can see what's going on, remember?) Since this is the case for all TV announcers, the standard practice is to tell interesting anecdotes. Here's where we find the next problem. It's not that Greenwald doesn't have stories -- he seems to have a infinite number of them -- it's that every one of them is loaded with enough tryptophan to put some small countries to sleep.

Since I'm not old enough to have heard Greenwald in his heyday, broadcasting for the Giants, I can't say whether his current style is the same as it always was, but I can say that his voice and pacing make him one of the most uncharismatic baseball broadcasters I've ever heard.

Beyond that, there doesn't seem to be the same amount of camaraderie and chemistry between Greenwald and the other broadcasters. On the TV side, he's paired with Ray Fosse, who in my opinion is a great color guy. Normally, Fosse can banter back and forth with his counterpart very easily and the dynamic between these two just seems stiff and very unforgiving. Many times, it seems as though Fosse keeps trying to keep the conversation flowing, but isn't given the proper "ins", segues or cues that would allow the chatter to flow more freely.

On the radio, Greenwald's normally dour voice, which many have said can be equated to Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh, sounded a lot more sprightly -- like he was happy -- an emotion you could hardly accuse him of expressing when the camera is on him.

Overall, I don't believe that Greenwald is a great fit for the A's broadcast team.