The Problem with Bob Fitzgerald

For 21 years and counting, Bob Fitzgerald has been doing play-by-play for the Golden State Warriors.

Some like him, others don’t, and the rest are apathetic to who the broadcasters are — they just want to watch the game. But I speak for a lot of sports fans when I say that our interest in a game does depend more or less on whose voice we’re hearing on the play-by-play.

For basketball, my intrigue in a game spikes if Mike Breen, Kevin Harlan, or Marv Albert are on the call — Albert did Warriors-Clippers for TNT on Christmas and he was magnificent as always. These three stick out because not just because they have great voices, but because of the way they conduct themselves on air — how they are informed, don’t show bias, and are genuinely excited whenever an exciting play happens. Even when Breen calls Knicks games for MSG (he’s their play-by-play man), he shows the same passion for plays made by the other team as he does for the Knicks.

I mention the above because this is precisely the problem that I — and many Warriors fans — have with Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald is a homer (one of the few things I agree with David Stern on), and to just call him a “homer” would be an understatement. It would be hard pressed to find another NBA commentator more in love with his team than Fitzgerald. He is essentially a PR-man on air, posing as a journalist while spewing Warriors propaganda.

Countless times I’ve cringed as Fitzgerald whines and moans about how the Warriors aren’t being given a fair shake by the referees (“How is it possible that the ‘Team X’ has shot 30 free throws while the Warriors only have six attempts”?), about how the other team is always playing their “A-game” when the Warriors are being blown out (of course, it can’t be the Warriors’ fault that they’re losing, right?), and then there are the times when he is just flat-out being an annoying homer (“You have the same official making all of the calls! It’s the game within the game!”):

I don’t mind when a local announcer is a little biased and homer-ish; after all, their games are broadcast to a region mainly full of fans of the team, and it’s hard not to get emotionally attached when calling every game of every season for a single team.

I do mind, however, when the announcer is so overtly partisan that it seems disingenuous, or just a shameless attempt to suck up to one’s bosses. In Fitzgerald’s case, there are several examples to support the latter. Start with the fact that he wrested away the Warriors’ play-by-play position from Greg Papa, according to Rich Lieberman. Add to that the notion that he gets paid by the Warriors to host a show on KNBR — as this WarriorsWorld piece by Rasheed Malek pointed out — on which he refuses to talk about the Warriors in a negative light.

From Lieberman’s post:

"It’s one thing to defend your team every now and then. Fitzgerald goes overboard, and his churlish persona, accented by frequent condescending giggles have been red meat for long-suffering Warriors fans annoyed with his “hack”-ness."

Cozying up to players is another illustration of Fitzgerald “going overboard.” In the WarriorsWorld article, a former player told Malek, “Fitzgerald is always trying to talk to us on the plane and telling us how he’s got our back when it comes to making sure the right things are said and mentioned about us on-air.”

From another player: “He’s always trying to be our friend and we’re like whatever man, just get lost.”

Fitzgerald would be a perfect PR-man for the Warriors, but no, he’s a commentator — a journalist — and the lengths to which he violates the integrity of his position are inconceivable. Trying to befriend players and telling them that he won’t criticize them on air? Seriously?

A disclaimer that those links above are a few years old, so perhaps the Warriors don’t pay his KNBR salary or he doesn’t suck up to players on the team plane anymore. But listen to him on broadcasts and on the radio and he’s no different from he was four or five years ago, toting the company line, calling players by their first name like he knows them personally, and inventing the nickname, “The Human Torch” for Stephen Curry — a nickname that I’ve never heard anybody but Fitzgerald use.

What makes Fitzgerald’s homer-ism even more apparent is his color commentator, Jim Barnett. Barnett is in his 30th season calling games and I wish he could continue for an eternity. Despite his loyalty and attachment to the Warriors, Barnett is objective and willing to criticize. He tells it to viewers straight and doesn’t try to “spin” negative stories like Fitzgerald does. He also has a wealth of basketball knowledge, having been around the NBA for nearly half a century. I learn something new every time whenever I hear Barnett broadcast a game — how air balls lead to offensive rebounds or missed corner threes result in fastbreaks for the opponent or how a 3-on-1 break should be turned into a 2-on-1 or how to perfectly convert a 2-for-1 with time running down in a quarter.

I can’t say the same about Fitzgerald, and it’s a shame because he has a voice for broadcasting and has made some great calls of terrific Warriors plays, such as this one of a Baron Davis game-winner against the Rockets

Unfortunately, there’s more to calling a game than yelling during game-winners or getting excited in the final minutes of a close game. Fitzgerald is just like every other announcer when the clock ticks down to zero with the game on the line, but during the other 47 minutes, I find it hard not to put the TV on mute.

Some fans like Fitzgerald, and I understand that. He’s a fan too, he’s not afraid to hide it, and die-hard fans like listening to one of their own broadcast the game, blame pitfalls one referees and whine about the foul-shooting disparities. Warriors’ ownership probably loves him too — not just for the biased manner in which he calls the game, but also for the three-hour pro-Warriors infomercial that he does every weekday on the No. 1-rated radio sports station in the Bay Area.

So it goes, 21 years and counting of truly awful announcing that we are enduring.

And with that, I’ll leave you with what “Fitz” does best — complain about the Warriors not getting a call: