Mark Grace was a really fun player to watch with the Chicago Cubs and Arizona Diamondbacks. I admit that I did not see many of his broadcasting efforts with the Arizona Diamondbacks, but I enjoyed his regular guy style when he did some broadcasting for FOX.
The fact that Mark Grace was fired as an Arizona Diamondbacks broadcaster after two recent DUI arrests is something that makes me very sad. Steve Berthiuame has reportedly been hired to replace Mark Grace. There are some people who view Berthiaume as a safe pick given his work at ESPN. Berthuiame is not likely to openly criticize the Diamondbacks or get in trouble with the law.
The Diamondbacks have hired Bob Brenly as the other broadcaster to go with Steve, but people have to wonder how often Brenly’s past as Diamondbacks manager will come up and whether or not having Brenly in the broadcast booth will somehow over shadow the work that Kirk Gibson is going to do as manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
Bob’s son Michael Brenly is still in the Cubs organization so there was a fair amount of loyalty between the Cubs and Bob Brenly. Brenly is someone that people really like when it comes to explaining basic strategies that may go through a manager’s mind when he is sitting in a broadcasting booth. Brenly said he had a great working with Len Kasper for a number of years with the Cubs, Cubs fans generally seemed to prefer Brenly over Kasper. Kasper is going to remain with the Cubs for the foreseeable future.
Brenly is a great guy who would often talk about some of his favorite musical acts when he was in the broadcast booth for the Cubs and things were getting out of hand. Brenly will likely speak highly of younger players for the Diamondbacks when they do well, he will likely have a lot of stories about some of these guys when they were coming up in the minor leagues or when they were first drafted. The fact that Brenly signed a five year deal with the Arizona Diamondback may be a sign that he is not interested in going into managing again.
Broadcasting positions are very competitive and a lot of former players work very hard to get these positions. A broadcaster has to know what they are talking about and try to educate fans out there who are watching the game.