Bob Costas was back in the broadcast booth for TBS this postseason as the play-by-play announcer for the entire Guardians-Yankees ALDS matchup. It brought some fans back to the days of Costas being the lead voice of playoff baseball games for NBC, but it also received some criticism. However, Costas was critical of himself, especially in one particular game.
Costas was a guest on The Michael Kay Show on Thursday with Don LaGreca and Peter Rosenberg as the show celebrates its 20th anniversary with 20 notable guests in 20 days. During the segment, Costas said he probably started the series leaning a little too much on the prep work he had done.
“I loved being around it and it was a good series. It went five games. I’m very self-critical even when I was in whatever was the prime of my career. If there was something even slightly off, it bothered me. I thought that in the first game, I was so well-prepared I probably leaned too heavily on that preparation in the first game. It was a little bit out of proportion. It wasn’t that anything that was said didn’t belong there, but I could have spread it out a little bit more. But, then games 2-5, I think it was fine.”
Even though fans might have complained about too much history being a part of the broadcast, Costas says that is relevant to a national broadcast even if the fans of the teams playing might know those historic facts already.
“Those who say that a history lesson is not relevant if you are 25 years old, when I was 25 years old, I wanted to hear about the history of baseball.
“If someone tells me that citing that Game 1 on October 11 was 74 years to the day since Cleveland last won the World Series that that shouldn’t be mentioned that night, I can’t agree with that even one percent. That’s just foolish. If someone says I watch the Yankees or Guardians all year long so I know some of that already, it’s a national broadcast. Someone in Tacoma or Sacramento doesn’t know all of that and you have to frame that. I don’t think that philosophically that’s ever the wrong thing to do. It’s the right thing to do.
“I think I’ve been able to weave those sorts of things pretty skillfully throughout my career and I think I only did maybe a B- job on it on the first game of the series, but after that, everything was fine.”
Costas mentioned that he would never compare himself to any broadcaster, but he does measure his success against himself:
“You want to be as good as you are capable of being. I’ve never compared myself to another person in my entire life. But, I do compare myself to my best version of myself. Maybe you can’t get there all the time, but you’d like to get reasonably close to that every time.”
Kay did ask Costas about how does a national broadcaster combat criticism that he is only rooting for one team and not the other:
“You reject it out of hand. You should always be open to reasonable perspectives or critiques, but there are some things that are just idiotic. Every national broadcaster will tell you exactly the same thing….There were people in Cleveland watching the same telecast, hearing exactly the same words spoken, who thought that I or Ron Darling was unfair to the Guardians, clearly rooting for the Yankees. Yankees fans, clearly he was disappointed when Judge hit a home run or he was so thrilled when the Guardians won Game 3 in the bottom of the ninth….As you know, you are supposed to reflect the atmosphere in the ballpark.
“People think oh gee, Bob Costas did Mickey Mantle’s eulogy and he grew up in New York and he rhapsodizes about his childhood memories about baseball. But, like you, I am also a professional. I know what my job is. I try to be objective and appreciative of both teams and reflect what’s going on in the series. That is a particular critique, it’s not even a critique, it’s an idiocy. It’s a standing joke among all network broadcasters.”
