Degler ready to dig into another IronPigs season

FROM KEITH GROLLER

Let's get this out there right away — the best place to watch IronPigs baseball is from anywhere inside Coca-Cola Park.

The atmosphere might be the best in all of minor league baseball and an IronPigs home game remains one of this community's best "night out" options.

But those who don't have a ticket to the games have grown accustomed to watching IronPigs baseball on Service Electric TV2, where Mike Zambelli and Steve Degler have developed a nice chemistry over the past two seasons as lead broadcasters.

Some wondered whether the Berks County-based Degler, who also works with Channel 69's Troy Hein on the Saturday night games, could adjust to the analyst role after being the radio play-by-play voice of the Reading Phillies for 17 years.

Degler never doubted he could pull it off.

"The beauty of Reading was that I was by myself, so in essence I was doing play-by-play and color every night, so it was not that big of a transition," the 44-year-old Degler said. "I still get to do some play-by-play for the 22 games we do in Reading every year. It's not that difficult. You just have to understand where you are and what your role is on that night.

"I enjoy being the color guy here, watching the players at this level and working with Mike Zambelli."

No one works harder at preparation than Degler, who loves to show up at the ballpark early to talk to everybody involved.

"I prepare a 3x5 index card on every IronPig or Reading Phillie, using a variety of methods of research," Degler said. "But during the season, I will also try to talk to as many players as possible on a one-on-one basis to get additional background information, just little nuggets that I can use on the air."

Although he's busy during the fall and winter with football, basketball and hockey — he works 50 to 60 college hoops games up and down the East Coast — Degler really enjoys the baseball season.

"I look forward to every season, but I think this is going to be a really good IronPigs team," he said. "I think this is a team that can do some damage with the bats and pitching staff. I'm also excited to be working with [new manager] Ryne Sandberg. I've only talked to him a few times so far, but everybody said he's going to be so much fun to deal with on a day-to-day basis."

Speaking of fun, Degler still finds time to have it with his family, including daughters Sarah and Hannah, who are 16 and 12.

"With all the baseball games, I probably work about 230 dates a year," he said. "But when I am not at the ballpark, it's nice to be home, too, and go to my kids' soccer games, and dance classes, and concerts and everything else."

Unparalleled ineptitude

With those words coming out of a break late in the second half of Monday's NCAA men's basketball title game, CBS analyst Clark Kellogg came up with the phrase of the night and, maybe, the year.

Kellogg might have taken flak for it, but it was an accurate assessment of Butler's offensive performance, which is destined to be remembered as one of the worst in championship basketball history — on any level. The 41 points on 12-for-64 shooting was one for the ages — the dark ages.

It's a shame it came on this night when Butler could've provided the feel-good story of the sports year, but you can't back off when you see, well, unparalleled ineptitude.

Dick Vitale probably would have gushed about the great coaching job by Jim Calhoun and made it all about the coaching, as he usually does, but give Kellogg credit for not going into sugarcoating bad shooting.

Thumbs up

To RCN4's "Sports Talk" show for bringing back legendary local basketball coach and longtime TV analyst Dick Tracy for Thursday's live, hour-long show at 6 p.m. Tracy will talk high school hoops, and I am sure he'll work in some Yankees baseball and Notre Dame football conversation as well.

Thumbs down

I get a kick out of Yankees' radio voice John Sterling with his home run catch phrases, but "Oh Curtis, you're something sort of Grandish!" on a Curtis Granderson home run is a bit much, no?

Best wishes

To Tracy's former broadcasting partner at Twin County and RCN, Bob Gehris, who recently underwent hip replacement surgery and is recuperating at the Phoebe Home.

Coming attractions

I was in the IronPigs clubhouse when reporter/producer Laura McHugh of PBS39 introduced herself to manager Ryne Sandberg and said that channel will be doing a documentary on the team. PBS39 does good work on its documentaries, so this should be an appealing production for area fans.

Speaking of documentaries, Showtime is following around the World Champion San Francisco Giants for a series that looks very much like HBO's "Hard Knocks." Bruce Bochy isn't exactly Rex Ryan, but this should be an intriguing look at the inner workings of an MLB club.

The NFL Network is promising at least 38 hours of "Draft Week" coverage. The first round begins at 8 p.m. April 28, with the second and third rounds set to begin at 6 p.m. the next day. It closes with Rounds 4-7 starting April 30 at noon.

http://www.mcall.com/sports/mc-finetuning-0406-20110406,0,1641620.column