Public relations teams are vital to the job of Major League Baseball commentators and announcers, providing them with crucial information about players and coaches. That’s especially true during spring training when rosters often include little-known players, different coaches and managers, and sometimes even duplicate numbers. But it appears the Arizona Diamondbacks dropped the ball in that regard this week.
During the broadcast of a split-squad game between the Giants and Diamondbacks on Saturday, longtime San Francisco Giants play-by-play announcer Jon Miller absolutely blasted the Diamondbacks for failing to provide him and his commentary team with any information about their squad, calling them “the bush league D-Backs.”
“I have to guess the D-backs decided the heck with the big leagues, let’s just not be a big-league team for the split-squad (game). … They have sent no public relations people over here, no information about who the manager is or anything at all about it,” Miller said in an audio clip from the broadcast that was shared on Reddit. “If they don’t want to be a big-league team we’ll just treat them like a sandlot team. They gave us no information about anything. So, one of those guys in a red shirt is managing and one of their right-handers is on the mound.
“There are certain things that go along with being a big-league team. … I did a little homework on what little we have, which is nothing whatsoever from the bush league D-Backs.”
It appears that it’s Spring Training for everyone as they try to work out the kinks ahead of the regular season, and that includes the Diamondbacks media relations team. Unfortunately, Spring Training is when Miller needed them the most.
[Reddit]
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