Well, we have been pretty caught up in the NCAA Tournament and have not posted much. But that’s about to change!

So, of course, we heard about Dick Vitale being voted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. You can check that story here. And of course, we know that Billy Packer, another annoucer, is not in the Hall of Fame (and has rarely even been in the discussion). His broadcast partner, Jim Nantz, has often campaigned for Packer to get some hall consideration. But to not avail.

That got us to thinking… why is that? And here’s the analogy here! Billy Packer is the Barry Bonds of college basketball broadcasting.

Packer probably should be in the basketball hall of fame. The man has called every NCAA Championship Game since 1974. That’s pretty sick. That’s a Joe DiMaggio-esque record, if you really think about it. 34 straight years of calling THE college basketball game of the year. Much like Bonds now holds THE record in baseball (all-time home runs).

But you know what else connects these two - they’re both jerks. Many people wonder how Packer has been allowed to keep calling title game after title game. The word often used to describe him is “curmudgeon.” Not exactly praise when used for a college hoops announcer (or any context actually).

In addition, Packer has been involved in some infamous situations, such as calling Allen Iverson a “tough monkey” in 1996, asking some women working the door at a Duke game “when they let women decide who gets into a men’s game,” ranting about how mid-majors should not get many bids in the NCAA tourney the same year George Mason made the Final Four, and the really odd “fagging out” comment he made on the Charlie Rose Show last year.

We won’t go into the stories of why people hate Bonds, as those are a dime a dozen. But it makes sense. If Bonds was a nice guy, we feel certain people would not be so hard on him. If Packer wasn’t such a jackass, people might take more notice of his ability to adapt over the years and call games for 4 different decades.