Fox Sports surprised the sports media world by breaking up its three-person Major League Baseball broadcast booth and naming John Smoltz lead game analyst for the 2016 season. The former World Series champion and Cy Young winner will team with lead play-by-play announcer Joe Buck, according to John Entz, President of Production and Executive Producer of Fox Sports. Smoltz, who first joined Fox in 2014, will serve as lead analyst for regular season and post-season game telecasts on Fox and FS1 as well as the All-Star Game. The move breaks up Fox’s three-person booth of ex-ESPNer Harold Reynolds, Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated and Buck. Two-person booths are becoming the norm in sports. Fox tried the three-person setup when longtime lead analyst Tim McCarver retired after the 2013 post-season. But the Reynolds-Verducci-Buck trio drew mixed reviews. Their bad luck continued during Game 1 of the 2015 World Series when their microphones went dead for several minutes forcing them take over the international feed from none other than Smoltz and Matt Vasgersian. The NY Daily News first reported Fox’s broadcast shake-up.
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