Jim Simpson...

[billyjack]

Hey, the sports world lost a legend the other day with the passing of longtime announcer Jim Simpson. Outside of my family, probably the most commonly heard voices in my house growing up were those of Dick Enberg, Jim Simpson, and probably Walter Cronkite (hey Kermit the Frog would be there but he had a shorter window of time). Simpson had a great delivery and professionalism, and was always classy. Fantastic voice of course.

I can't find a thorough obit to back this up, but i remember him originally from his NBC work on NFL (AFC games of course), college hoops, and some Saturday MLB games. In the 80's he moved to ESPN, where i imagine he did a lot of Big East games but i just don't specifically remember. Probably some USFL too.

Like Enberg, he always looked to talk-up players. I don't remember him ever being cynical or negative about players or teams (compared to Sean McDonough and Jay Bilas types, or years ago Bob Trumpy was cynical at times).

Simpson's style (and Enberg's) was more to ask his color analyst something like "what do the Broncos need to do in the second half to get back in the game?", rather than insulting Red Miller, or saying that Craig Morton or Norris Weese suck.

I also liked when he'd say something on a Saturday MLB game like "Orta had an RBI groundout in the third, and of course you remember last night he had that big 2-run single in the 7th to cut the White Sox deficit to 7 to 4..." As an 8-year old, I'd be thinking "really, I'm supposed to know Jorge Orta did that?" I felt so unprepared like i hadn't done my homework. Cool guy.