Karl Ravech knows baseball fans prefer local announcers

Even Karl Ravech knows the fans tuning to ESPN for Sunday Night Baseball would prefer to be listening to their own announcers.

When national broadcasters are admitting they can’t compete with team’s local announcers, maybe it’s time for Major League Baseball and its media rights partners to figure out a new approach to calling games. Joe Buck recently admitted he understands why fans prefer their home announcers over a national broadcast. And Sunday night on ESPN, Ravech co-signed the sentiment.

With the National Baseball Hall of Fame induction ceremony taking place in the afternoon, ESPN showed some images from the event during the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast of the New York Mets and San Francisco Giants. It prompted David Cone to reference Jon Miller being in the Hall of Fame and in the booth next door, as the longtime radio voice of the Giants. Cone went on to praise the announcers for both teams, mentioning Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow with the Giants and Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling for the Mets.

Hopefully Michael Kay wasn’t listening, because hearing his YES Network broadcast partner fawn over the best booth in baseball would have been tough to take. But while Mets and Giants fans undoubtedly agree with Cone’s assessment of their home announcers, every fanbase would rather hear their local broadcast over ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball booth.

Even David Cone loves Gary, Keith and Ron pic.twitter.com/5sf8uqfkHT

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 28, 2025

“The people that are watching tonight, we completely understand that you miss your own broadcasters,” Ravech said. “It’s part of the deal that we do a Sunday Night game, but we certainly a great amount of respect for the jobs that those four team do, two radio and two TV. Amongst the best in baseball.”

Keith Hernandez may have been happy to have Sunday off with ESPN picking up the series finale between the Mets and Giants, but fans are never happy with the national broadcast. And the voice of Sunday Night Baseball gets it.

Surely, ESPN would prefer if Ravech attempted to sell the fans on watching Sunday Night Baseball because the broadcast does a great job. Instead, Ravech saying, “it’s part of the deal that we do a Sunday night game,” almost sounded like a concession speech. ESPN’s national broadcast might not be every fan’s first choice, but that’s what they’re stuck with.

This isn’t a knock against Ravech and the Sunday Night Baseball broadcast crew. When you’re a national announcer calling one or two of a team’s 162 games in a season, it’s impossible to live up to the standard set by the local broadcast. And it can’t be easy calling a game every week knowing most of the audience doesn’t want you on the call.

Some of the criticism is warranted, as it was with his lackluster home run calls Sunday night. But Ravech can call the best game of his life and he probably isn’t going to get much praise from the fans. Maybe the best way to attack any instinctively biased criticism is by offering the little hint of sympathy Ravech offered Sunday night.