Kasper, Brenly step to top of town's baseball announcers

It was my intention to work my way methodically from the bottom to the top in giving close study to our local baseball announcing teams, but outside forces have prompted me to revise that thinking.

Bob Brenly has been mentioned as a possible candidate to fill the managing vacancy for the Cincinnati Reds, and he seems open to the idea of returning to the dugout.

While I know it's a long shot that Brenly would be leaving the Cubs' TV booth any time soon -- and while I certainly don't expect this to make any difference in any decision -- I want to make sure I get it out there before he goes anywhere that I believe he and play-by-play partner Len Kasper have become the best baseball broadcast team in town.

So, having torched the White Sox' WSCR 670-AM radio announcers Ed Farmer and Chris Singleton last month, I'm going to go from worst to first in praising Kasper and Brenly today. We'll fill in the middle slots later.

I've thought all season Kasper and Brenly were reaching the top of the local heap in their third year together, and I'm more certain of that than ever after listening intently to their work in the top of the sixth inning in the Cubs' win at St. Louis on Comcast SportsNet Chicago Tuesday night.

First, both CSNC and the Channel 9 production teams (the latter sometimes airing on Channel 26) like to fill in aural space in the background for the Cubs on TV. They like crowd noise and lots of it. On Tuesday, you could even hear plate umpire Larry Poncino jawing with Cardinals manager Tony La Russa.

That means Kasper and color man Brenly never feel compelled to fill the space on their own. They can let the visuals and the crowd tell the tale (an old tactic of Harry Caray and many others, taken to extremes by Ken "Hawk" Harrelson during Mark Buehrle's no-hitter earlier this season). So they've developed a crisp shorthand that suits the medium.

Kasper may not even introduce a batter, because after all his name and stats are already on the screen. On Tuesday, he opened the top of the sixth with the score, 2-1 Cards, made a pitch for ticket sales, described "a swing and miss for (Ryan) Theriot," then returned to the previous half-inning to show Carlos Zambrano eschewing signals to simply tell catcher Jason Kendall he was about to throw a slider.

Yet Kasper has always been a good, solid play-by-play man. I think the key to the team's overall improvement has been the development of Brenly, who has become both more critical and more colorful. Look at how he picks up the point as the replay shows Zambrano saying, "Slider," weaves in his own experience, then deftly handles the play-by-play when it intrudes only to finish his point.

Brenly: "Sure looked like it. You know, Curt Schilling was notorious for that, especially after the batter fouled the ball out of play. Inevitably everybody looks to see where the foul ball goes, and Curt made sure his catcher looked at him instead of watching the foul ball -- as that one gets through into center field. Should be a basehit for Ryan Theriot. But everybody at the ballpark, including both dugouts, would look to see where the foul ball went, and Curt would just look in at the catcher and tell him what he wanted to throw -- 'Fastball,' 'Split.' "

And Brenly's clipped intonation of those last two words suggested how Schilling was sneaking them past the batter. That's a completely different and far more polished broadcaster than the one who joined the Cubs just over two years ago.

Kasper has developed a delivery in which he usually lets the visuals tell what's happening, then quickly sets the positions of the baserunners and the outs after each batter. Here he is with Derrek Lee on second, Aramis Ramirez on first and Cliff Floyd up.

Kasper: "Bouncer, and what a play by (Albert) Pujols and he will beat Floyd to first base. That would've tied the game easily. As it is, second and third with two outs. Pujols won a Gold Glove last year, and that's why."

Kasper also put three syllables and three different quavering notes on that opening "bouncer" to convey it was a tricky play.

Both Kasper and Brenly are exceedingly well-prepared, and they slipped in their information seamlessly. In that half inning, Kasper mentioned how baseballreference.com considered the new Busch Stadium a pitcher's park this season, but that Jacque Jones loved playing there, going 3-for-4 with 4 RBI on April 28. Brenly spoke of how St. Louis pitcher Kip Wells was just happy to have finished the fifth inning, having given up 27 runs in that inning already this season.

Brenly also likes the phrase "Bugs Bunny" changeup, a reference to the cartoon where Bugs strikes out three batters on one slow-moving pitch, and recently talked of how reliever Carlos Marmol could "smell the barn" in heading for home and trying to close out a win. That's colorful use of language.

I know I was tough on Brenly when he returned to the Cubs' broadcast booth and wrote of how he was no Steve Stone. He still isn't. But let me write this now: If Brenly took a managing job and Stone replaced him, it would take a long time for Kasper and Stone to develop the same chemistry. They're the best in town right now.

In the air

Remotely interesting: The American Hockey League has presented ABC7 Chicago sports anchor Mark Giangreco with the James H. Ellery Memorial Award for outstanding coverage of the AHL, primarily with the Wolves.

David Beckham's U.S. debut with the L.A. Galaxy produced the highest ratings ever for a Major League Soccer game on ESPN or ESPN2, with about 1.5 million viewers. That still leaves a long way to go to profitability.

End of the dial: WSCR 670-AM clocked WMVP 1000-AM in Arbitron ratings released this week. The Score rose to a 1.9 percent share of the overall audience 12 and older, while WMVP dropped to a 1.3, and the Score also ruled in the demographic of men age 25 to 54.

The funniest part of Dan McNeil's return this week on his WMVP afternoon-drive show wasn't his deep thanks to Comcast SportsNet Chicago for audio highlights. It was refusing to believe morning host Marc Silverman could possibly have described himself as an "Adonis" in trying to pick up a 21-year-old woman. ... Jonathan Hood does two shows live from New Orleans, site of the Arena Football League Championship, at 7 p.m. today and 1 p.m. Saturday on WMVP.

-- Ted Cox