Chase Utley with the 2014 mantra that ‘the Phillies can contend’ – hmm. sounds more like a PR announcement with last year’s showing
After staying somewhat the same for the last several years, you can suddenly see some big changes within the Phillies team and organization in the broadcast booth. It all started with the announcement that Chris Wheeler and Gary ‘Sarge’ Matthews would no longer be on the broadcast team that brings us almost daily games to our homes and over the radio from April to October.
It wasn’t the Phillies organization that made the decision about Wheels and Sarge, it was the broadcast entity of Comcast Sportsnet that made the decision not to rehire the two veteran broadcasters. Could they have handled this a bit better? That without question would have to be yes, a veteran broadcaster like Chris Wheeler should not have been shown the door so disrespectfully. If anything he could have had a meeting with CSN Philly and perhaps asked if he would make this 2014 season his last year. Showing him the door in such a public way for no apart reason was abrupt and not called for.
People have opinions when it comes to broadcasters. Just about every Phillies broadcaster has his fans and his people who aren’t so happy with some of the things they say. It’s just about people’s opinion of them, it doesn’t reflect anything about them personally because the fans who would say they don’t like a broadcaster don’t even know them.
The new Phillies broadcast package was awarded to CSN Philly and has taken effect immediately, they have wasted no time in upsetting a lot of fans that really liked both Chris Wheeler and Gary Matthews, and the Phillies games without them now will in some ways never be the same.
