FanPost

Why is Bob Fitzgerald such a lightning rod?

Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

For the record, I like Bob Fitzgerald. He is a homer, like myself. But he seems to illicit a visceral response from many fans. Let me digress for a moment. I remember many years ago when a TV celebrity named Mary Hart was on the air waves. She and her TV station got sued by an old lady who suffered epileptic seizures whenever she tuned in to Mary’s show. This is a true story. Apparently, Mary’s voice, or perhaps her mere persona, would inevitably make this particular viewer suffer uncontrollable bouts of epileptic seizures. I don’t recall how the litigation ended. But I felt that the lawsuit was frivolous. The viewer could have just changed the channel. If you don't like Fitz, then just turn the volume off and listen to the radio broadcast.

And I remember that a couple of years ago, someone joined GSoM to simply write a short Fan Post about how much he hated Fitz. Again, I thought that was silly. But maybe he was onto to something. When I watch Warriors games with friends, I often hear some of them complain about Fitz. Here is just one example when we watched the Warriors embarrass the Spurs:

"Great game last night………..but I’m finding it very difficult to watch the games with Fitzgerald announcing.

He is an obnoxious homer – fans are more knowledgeable than that, and deserve an adult announcer, not a brainless cheerleader/PR man/whiner. Barnett sounds like even he is getting sick of Fitzgerald’s ridiculous homer comments, like "How does Steph do that!!!!!!!"………Barnett answers this idiotic rhetorical question with something like "with practice and focus"…….essentially telling BF to knock off the stupid fawning." Wow! The hate for Fitz is strong.

Fitz is an accomplished broadcaster

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I will stand up for Fitz, but again, it is for purely selfish reasons. You see, whenever I poke fun at a celebrity here, the mods have to do damage control and explain to the celebrity that I'm a crazy old man who is not on the staff of GSoM. Therefore, I want to make life easier for our mods, and I don't want to get into any more trouble around here. Fitzgerald is currently in his 19th season as television play-by-play announcer for the Golden State Warriors. In addition to announcing 71 Warriors games on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area during the 2015-16 campaign, Fitzgerald also continues to maintain an active role on the "Warriors Weekly Roundtable" and postgame radio shows throughout the basketball season. Since his arrival, the Warriors broadcast team has received 12 nominations and won two Emmys for "Best Live Sports Broadcast," the initial two for the organization. Fitzgerald has previously received five Emmy nominations for "Best On-Camera" and was awarded the Emmy for "Best On-Camera, Play-by-Play Sports" for Northern California in 2007 and 2014. Fitzgerald also spent six years as the play-by-play voice for ESPN’s NBA Basketball video game series. Source: Wikipedia.

For some strange reason, most of my friends are from Chicago, including the above-quoted fan. And Chicago is where Fitz was born. He moved to San Francisco at age nine in 1975, when the local NBA team Golden State Warriors won the NBA championship. Fitzgerald graduated from Serra High School in nearby San Mateo and the University of Notre Dame. It’s not Princeton (where I attended), but it’s not a bad school. Fitzgerald also earned a master's degree in sports management from Ohio State University. While at Notre Dame, he worked as a play-by-play broadcaster for Fighting Irish football and basketball on campus radio station WVFI. And with such accomplishment, then why all the hate? It is a mystery to me. Perhaps the older fans are comparing him to Bill King. I’m going to tell you right now that no one will ever compare to the legendary King. Even LeBron James would agree with this, and may they both RIP.

But I need a reality check; hence, the poll below.

Postscript: At this point, I have written about every Warriors player and coach. I have written about how Draymond Green is the new Magic Johnson, how Steph Curry will repeat as MVP, why Iggy should make the All-Star team, why we need Speights Mo than ever, how Sean Livingston became the Revenant on Christmas Day, how Rush has been resurrected, and what we should do with Jason Thompson. I'm now reaching and wrote this article about Fitz. Next stop: Ros, who I will call Cholula -- she is hot!

This FanPost is a submission from a member of the mighty Golden State of Mind community. While we're all here to throw up that W, these words do not necessarily reflect the views of the GSoM Crew. Still, chances are the preceding post is Unstoppable Baby!