Gino Cappelletti Retires From Booth

[Joker]

I got the perfect choice...Monty Capuletti....

..and the Jet fans go beserk....

 

[RayClay]

Not to sound age-discriminatory but Criq just turned 68. I wonder how many more years he has.

He has about minus 5 based on his preseason performance.

 

[jlu52]

Just think .. Criqui and Glanville. The Dream Team. Would be a very exciting couple of years.

Talk about going from the penthouse to the outhouse; )

 

[jlu52]

I got the perfect choice...Monty Capuletti....

..and the Jet fans go beserk....

I only wish Rodney were still with us. RIP, Mr. Dangerfield......

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Randy Cross is passable but Glanville.....sheesh.

Matt Light's evil twin Todd Light would disagree...

Radio and TV are like apples and oranges. When your audience can't see what is going on you have to be focused and able to provide sufficient detail in real time so they feel as if they are. In TV much of banter in the booth is unrelated to the actual game at hand.

Guys like Criqui and Cross and/or Glanville are B level TV quality broadcasters. Light years apart from A level radio broadcast teams.

And the issue for Zo or any of the locals is decorum at the next level. The radio broadcase team is an extension of the team's marketing. That is why so many teams retain the blind homers. It's not a job for critics or those with agendas and/or egos, which is why McDonough basically wore out his welcome in his home town. You need to find consumate pros with no local celebrity good old boy network affiliations or empire building aspirations. Not even sure Zo can make it and remain on the air as a sports talk radio host, especially paired with someone as idiotic as Gresh can be, for that reason. Same deal would hold for guys like Tanguay who is so intertwined with Felger's every expanding media empire and co-dependent. Ever try to watch sports programming weeknights in the area let alone Sundays and find a show Felger isn't hosting? It's not easy...

 

[scout]

There are no former Patriots out there? It's kind of funny if you look at the announcers today of former players who had decent careers, which has little to do with the booth.

 

[patman52]

Agreed that play by play on the radio is much more difficult. I like Pete Shepard, and he has a good Radio voice. He will criticize the pats but he loves the team. He has a year to practice doing the games by viewing film and during the live games. What he has to learn is to let the color guy complete his thought. But that is the problem I have with Zo that he will not be concise enough.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Great piece about a match made in heaven. Will be tough to replicate. Can't picture Gil and Zo having remotely the connection even for a season. Especially not if Zo is off to do 5 other shows on the heels of the his broadcast duties and scurrying back to a radio gig on Monday thru Friday not to mention filming All Access midweek. He's unfortunately part of the attention seeking, egotistical, talk over each other clown crew that covers this team as part of the Boston media. Not a truly consummate professional amongst 'em, and that is what Gil and Geno had going for them.

"Gil, as far as I'm concerned, is the consummate play-by-play man on the radio -- great inflection, rapid-fire, great recall," Cappelletti said.

The gentlemanly Cappelletti was the perfect complement, striking the balance of not talking too much, but just enough, and with sharp insight.

"There was an excitement about attempting to paint a picture with words," he said. "I always thought that was what I wanted when listening on the radio to a game. I'm hearing words, but if you were able to paint a picture with those words, it created an image for the listener and that's what they want. We were able to do that and not with a whole lot of nonsense."

New England Patriots radio team of Gil Santos, Gino Cappelletti -- thanks for the memories - ESPN Boston

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Agreed that play by play on the radio is much more difficult. I like Pete Shepard, and he has a good Radio voice. He will criticize the pats but he loves the team. He has a year to practice doing the games by viewing film and during the live games. What he has to learn is to let the color guy complete his thought. But that is the problem I have with Zo that he will not be concise enough.

When you think of Gil, the last person you'd correlate to him is Pete. Pete is emotional and gets flustered easily and then gets tongue tied. He can get run over like a freight train by any forceful or more knowledgable co host. A play by play guy to be good has to be the captain of the ship, and the color analyst has to be simply the first mate. You need guys on the same page so they aren't prone to getting into disagreements or stepping on each others toes. Because then they become a distraction to each other and their listeners.

 

[BradfordPatsFan]

Radio and TV are like apples and oranges. When your audience can't see what is going on you have to be focused and able to provide sufficient detail in real time so they feel as if they are. In TV much of banter in the booth is unrelated to the actual game at hand.

Guys like Criqui and Cross and/or Glanville are B level TV quality broadcasters. Light years apart from A level radio broadcast teams.

What you say about radio and tv is correct. However, Criqui also is the pbp guy for Notre Dame football radio broadcasts. He is awful at that as well. The sad part about Criqui is that he was the premier college pbp tv guy for a long, long time. He called many of the major bowl games. My, how he has fallen.


As for Gil's replacement, I don't know of anyone on the local scene who can do it. I love McDonough but he's got a cush job with ESPN. Meter works for WEEI so I doubt that he'd be an option. That being said, I wouldn't want him calling the games. He has an awful voice for radio, let alone football play by play. His calls of the BC games are horrendous.

A lot of people in this thread are throwing out color guys but Zolak may be all right in that role. They at least owe it to him to give him a look as he's worked on the broadcast.

 

[RobertWeathers]

I only wish Rodney were still with us. RIP, Mr. Dangerfield......

I don't care what people say. Every movie before "Ladybugs" was funny.

 

[patman52]

When you think of Gil, the last person you'd correlate to him is Pete. Pete is emotional and gets flustered easily and then gets tongue tied. He can get run over like a freight train by any forceful or more knowledgable co host. A play by play guy to be good has to be the captain of the ship, and the color analyst has to be simply the first mate. You need guys on the same page so they aren't prone to getting into disagreements or stepping on each others toes. Because then they become a distraction to each other and their listeners.

I don't mind the emotional, I find it adding to the enjoyment of the broadcast.
Pete gets flustered when arguing, but all he will be doing is describing the action- he wont be "arguing" with anyone. He would not be a good "3rd man in the booth" but to give play by play I am fine with him.

 

[TruthSeeker]

They called it the what rule?!? That's no way to talk about football, Zo. Can we bleep that?

The overall post was less than impressive but this had me laughing in the aisle.

 

[lurker1965]

Gino Cappelletti retires from Patriots radio team - Touching All the Bases - Boston.com


I'm gonna miss me some Gino. I know that it's time, but I've been listening to he and Gil since they started doing the games, with the TV volume off. At his best, he was certainly among the best at his job. A great player and broadcaster. Good luck, Gino!

For several years that has been annoying. There is a delay on the radio broadcast. You see the safety run out of bounds with an interception while Gil is still saying "QB drops back..."

My joke the they were afraid Gino might say "That @$%&ing cal was complete bull #$%^!"*

*Yes, I know it was so we'd hear the Buick ad that paid CBS for air time.

I remember the first time I found out Gino was a legendary player in the '60s. I'll remember him as a broadcaster.

 

[lurker1965]

I don't mind the emotional, I find it adding to the enjoyment of the broadcast.
Pete gets flustered when arguing, but all he will be doing is describing the action- he wont be "arguing" with anyone. He would not be a good "3rd man in the booth" but to give play by play I am fine with him.

Pete has a fine voice. If he learns to say things like, "2nd and 4 from their own 38. Brady receives the snap, fakes to Ridley, pass to Hernadez, complete and tackled by Frobesher at the 47." And then SHUT UP as Zo explains about the defense and why Frobesher, a DT, was covering a TE lined up as a slot receiver.

And if Zo can learn to complete the sentence before the next snap....

 

[goheels22002]

He has about minus 5 based on his preseason performance.

Wikipedia says he was born in 1940, making him 72. Good for him that he's still doing his thing.

 

[MoLewisrocks]

Pete has a fine voice. If he learns to say things like, "2nd and 4 from their own 38. Brady receives the snap, fakes to Ridley, pass to Hernadez, complete and tackled by Frobesher at the 47." And then SHUT UP as Zo explains about the defense and why Frobesher, a DT, was covering a TE lined up as a slot receiver.

And if Zo can learn to complete the sentence before the next snap....

I think that pairing contains at least one if too many...

Again, Pete doesn't have the command to help mould Zo into what he'd need to be. He'd have his hands full trying to manage his own shortcomings. Remember, Gil interviewed and hired Gino based on simpatico they were then able to build on and refine. Pete and Zo are basically two guys who lucked into the Boston sports media market at a time when it was booming, although Pete never was able to advance and ultimately lost his foothold when competition ramped up in the market. Zo is already making way more money than Gil or Gino ever did in the Felger multi media mold. Don't think he would be willing to forgo much of that in order to fill the role of in game color analyst. Just like Felger walked away from writing and any level of journalistic integrity...which was never his stong suit to being with, to get ahead merely based on being brash and opinionated.

Just don't think Pete could withstand the pressure of caving in to his emotions at the worst possible times when a pbp guy has to compartmentalize wounded fanboy feelings and control himself any more than I think Zo can contain his need to project himself as something more than he ever really was (and never on BB's watch)... He has a healthy dose of that when I played mentality that Gresh lives to project to seperate themselves from mere mediots.

Neither of these are mediot jobs. They are jobs for highly skilled broadcasters and technicians.

 

[patman52]

I think that pairing contains at least one if too many...

Again, Pete doesn't have the command to help mould Zo into what he'd need to be. He'd have his hands full trying to manage his own shortcomings. Remember, Gil interviewed and hired Gino based on simpatico they were then able to build on and refine. Pete and Zo are basically two guys who lucked into the Boston sports media market at a time when it was booming, although Pete never was able to advance and ultimately lost his foothold when competition ramped up in the market. Zo is already making way more money than Gil or Gino ever did in the Felger multi media mold. Don't think he would be willing to forgo much of that in order to fill the role of in game color analyst. Just like Felger walked away from writing and any level of journalistic integrity...which was never his stong suit to being with, to get ahead merely based on being brash and opinionated.

Just don't think Pete could withstand the pressure of caving in to his emotions at the worst possible times when a pbp guy has to compartmentalize wounded fanboy feelings and control himself any more than I think Zo can contain his need to project himself as something more than he ever really was (and never on BB's watch)... He has a healthy dose of that when I played mentality that Gresh lives to project to seperate themselves from mere mediots.

Neither of these are mediot jobs. They are jobs for highly skilled broadcasters and technicians.

Well Pete won't be breaking Zo in, Santos still will be in the booth this year. After a year with Gil, which will be about 20 games he should have a grasp of the job.

It will be tough to bring in a name just to do radio, Santos used to do tv sports on the news as a income supplement. What makes it tough also was even when the patriots went from station to station, the new station was always ok with Geno and Gil.

Pete lost his job, not because of his skill but a bad management decision at EEI.

He likes the team, is available and is an experienced radio host. yes there is going to be a learning curve, but big deal- it is a radio call of a game, It is not like it has any effect on the team.

 

[BigMike]

OMG. Gary Tanguay? Can you imagine?!? AFC playoffs. Raiders at Patriots, 4th quarter, January 2002, Foxboro Stadium.

In his deep baritone,Tanguay:

"Patriots are driving, Zo. It's hard to see what's going on with the snow coming down and no yard lines or hashmarks. Have you ever had hash, Zo? I had some black Moroccan hash once and my eyesight went bad, Zo.

Brady's barking signals. I think that's Brady. What's his number again, Zo? Wait, maybe that's Drew Bledsoe. Well, he's barking out a play. I hope he's not hemmorhaging, Zo. The snow continues to come down. The quarterback drops back. Yep, Zo, that is Tom Brady. Says so right here #12 - Tom Brady, University of Michigan, a real Cinderella story. Are you going to eat those curly fries, Zo?

What happened, Zo? Brady dropped the ball? I missed that Zo. Thanks for the fries. Can't blame him. It's snowing really hard. It sucks to be Brady, right now, Zo. The referees are meeting and one of them is watching TV on the sideline. What's up with that, Zo? Replay? That's a good idea.

The Patriots are getting the ball back. They called it the what rule?!? That's no way to talk about football, Zo. Can we bleep that? Let's go to commercial. This is Gary Tanguay, the little man with the big voice and Scott Zolack live from Foxboro Stadium. Do you kiss your mother with that mouth, Zo?"

Hilarious - that Tanguay dude is always wearing different eyeglasses and now growing his hair long....going through some kind of mid life crisis...

 

[Joker]

watch...they'll go straight vanilla and hire the talking loaf of Wonder Bread, Dale Arnold, to do the play by play