Larry Dierker & Dave Raymond, SABR Meeting, 2009.
As you probably know by now, the Houston Astros have announced that radio game broadcasters Dave Raymond and Brett Dolan will not be back to continue their media duties with the club in 2013. After seven seasons as the “back street boys” to the forever-on-his-way-to-retirement Hall of Famer Milo Hamilton, the guys have been let go for all the usual reasons that flow from the explanatory blanket that always reads as “we’ve decided to go in a new direction.”
“New direction” covers everything, but it always begins with “we didn’t hire these guys; let’s go find our own.” If the replacements fail to turn out to be Hall of Fame quality, at least, we won’t have to live with the fact that one or both of the guys we just terminated were pretty darn good, even if we didn’t hire them.
I don’t envy what Raymond and Dolan had to encounter over the past seven years: Milo Hamilton is a treasure, all right, but he was always this fading into the distance figure, sort of like that ancient Jimmy Durante act in which the old actor keeps walking away in the dark, but always stopping to turn and wave goodbye again from the next receding spotlight down the path. – And his verbal shout “GOODBYE!” back to Houston fans never grew any quieter, even as Milo faded further into the distance each lesser dutiful year in the act of supposedly turning the show over to Dave and Brett.
Didn’t happen. Probably never was going to happen. And now that it has, the two younger men are left holding the bag of having to say all the right things they need to say to help them blur over their disappointments and find other jobs in broadcasting somewhere else as Milo takes the “no comment” route in protection of his own hope for one more spotlight goodbye tour with the Astros next season.
It’s just how the world turns. And always has. As it is, we seldom see justice or equity in real-time. When they do occur, they sometimes arrive way beyond the precipitating moment. Other times, they just may not happen at all. Not in this lifetime, at least.
Good luck to both Dave Raymond and Brett Dolan. Although I never got to meet Brett Dolan, I did get to meet Dave Raymond through SABR and I was most impressed by his intelligence, his humor, and his love of baseball and its history. Our highlight SABR memory with Dave Raymond will always be the time he interviewed both Hall of Famer Monty Irvin and former Astros icon Larry Dierker on the same afternoon. What a great time we all had as Raymond led these baseball greats smoothly through a narrative review of how things used to be.
Class lands on its feet. Dave Raymond and Brett Dolan are going to be fine. We Houstonians are just going to miss them. Until their terminations, anyway, many of us still embraced the idea that our town was capable of raising our own Hall of Famers – and that class and character are not qualities that must always be imported to Houston. Even though Raymond and Dolan hailed from California and Iowa originally, they had been here long enough to have become real Houstonians, anyway. We jut gave them the opportunities they needed, but with all the aforementioned floor-traction problems.
Maybe next time.
Tags: Brett Dolan, Dave Raymond
The Pecan Park Eagle 
October 5, 2012 at 2:09 pm |
not an easy job; trying to sell a crappy team and stuck working with Milo.
October 5, 2012 at 2:35 pm |
That is sad to hear – Milo seems to be a nice enough guy but enough is enough let the young guys have their time. Then whammy they get canned. I sure hope Milo is not back next year and most importantly I wish both Dave and Brett the best.
October 5, 2012 at 3:42 pm |
Dave Raymond with Dierker and Irwin was priceless. Thankfully we have it recorded to watch again. Thank you, Dave!
Good luck to the guys wherever they wind up; and Good night Mrs. Callabash, wherever you are.
October 5, 2012 at 4:29 pm |
Another disappointment to me – I REALLY enjoyed these guys. When I traveled and could not watch the Astros on TV, it was always good to hear their voices carry the “good, bad and ugly” of our last few seasons. Added to covering up the faux pas of our “Hall of Famer” who should have retired 10 years ago, they did one hell of a job. I will miss them both and hope they find an owner who will appreciate them.
October 5, 2012 at 4:48 pm |
To be frank, I was lukewarm on Dolan as an announcer, but Dave Raymond, a protege of the genius Jon Miller, was an absolutely terrific broadcaster. He was stuck in a terrible situation as you say, Bill. In other words, he was stuck behind an overrated, self-promoting hack who wouldn’t go away. To let Dave Raymond get away is a flatly abyssmal decision. Just awful. Another giant misstep for new management. After such promise, they are proving to be as clueless as Drayton. And that is pretty darn bad.
October 5, 2012 at 9:19 pm |
I wish they would really head in a different direction: as in Crane putting the team back up for sale since he’s done so much harm to it. Of course, he couldn’t get 25% of what he paid for it. Maybe John Nau will buy them and turn Minute Maid into the history museum since that’s all it’s good for now.
October 6, 2012 at 2:18 am |
I agree with many of the sentiments already posted. Dave Raymond is an excellent broadcaster and I shall miss his expertise and his humor; I wish him all the best, believing that he’ll find a position with a team that will deserve him. Keep us on your blog list, Dave!
October 6, 2012 at 2:53 am |
Do they make numbers 40 and 41 of Astros employees that have been fired? Good luck to the former announcers!