What Ron Santo brings to the table has absolutely nothing to do with traditional sports broadcasting. If that's the debate, then fine, the haters win. Almost every town in America has local sports broadcasters who would be more proficient at what they do than Ron Santo. But that's not why we love him. We love the emotion and heart he brings. We love (most of) his stories. We love that he says what he's thinking and means what he says. Good or bad. The honesty and love of the game. And so on. Things you can't exactly put down on paper and qualify but I think, someday when (God forbid) Ron isn't around, people are going to be able to feel missing. Same with Harry really. For the last decade of his career you could have found thousands of announcers more skilled at their profession. But damned if I would not give up a single Holy Cow for a lifetime of more technical announcers. As the 80's hairband song goes "don't know what you've got, til it's gone". I've missed Harry for just about every single game since he passed on. I'm going to miss Ron for just about every single game when he passes on. If you're taking this so super serial that you just cannot live with maybe missing a few plays a year due to Ron, the least of your worries in life is Ron freaking Santo and his color commentary skills. It's a game. It's supposed to be played by those who love it and called by those who loved it. This modern era of players who care 10 times more about their salary than their team, and announcers who may be as proficient as it gets but have no heart are a good reason why the game has lost a bit of it's luster. Or, to put it another way, had Babe Ruth been lucky enough to live 30+ years after his retirement you can damn well bet he would have wound up in a Yankees booth. And people would have loved him, no matter how often he came to work a little loaded or how often he rambled and missed a play. In my opinion, Ronny has earned his job until they can pry it out of his cold dead hands.