Jamie Moyer and Matt Stairs to Join Philadelphia Phillies Broadcast Team
By Mike Lacy
Jamie Moyer. Image Credit: Andrew B. Fielding-USA TODAY Sports
It was a long search with a lot of interesting names thrown around, but it seems as if the Phillies have finally decided on two new members of their announcing team for the 2014 season: Jamie Moyer and Matt Stairs. Dennis Deitch was the first to report the news:
The hiring was later confirmed by Todd Zolecki.
The team – reportedly under pressure from Comcast – “re-assigned” announcers Chris Wheeler and Gary Matthews a couple of months ago. Since that time, some of the names who were rumored to be in the running included Ricky Bottalico, Mitch Williams, Doug Glanville, and Brad Lidge. Originally, it was thought that the team would only hire one man to replace Wheeler and Matthews, but apparently, Stairs and Moyer impressed the team so much that they decided to hire both of them.
For now, most Phillies fans seem to be on board with the hires. It makes sense as we all remember them as members of the 2008 championship team. But as you may have noticed, Philadelphia sports fans don’t cut people a lot of slack. If these two don’t do a good job right off the bat, Phillies fans might soon be criticizing them the same way they did Wheeler.
Then again, if the game gets boring, Stairs can always try doing this:
That should keep fans entertained for an inning or two.
It isn’t clear if Moyer has similar beer chugging skills, but knowing the amount of preparation he used to put into his pitching, I’m sure that he’ll learn if the job requires it.