Pebble Hunting

30 Teams, 30 Home Run Calls

by Sam Miller

Every so often you’ll hear some stupid fact about genetic similarities between humans and, like, pigs. Did you know that humans and pigs share 90 percent of DNA, according to unreliable sources on the Internet? See, you just heard a stupid fact about genetic similarities between humans and pigs. It happens every so often, if you hang around me.

Broadcasters are like that. They all share most of the same DNA. They say mostly the same words, and they say them with mostly the same inflection, and they know mostly the same things. It’s those few percent that differ that separate them, and those few percent that differ make a very big difference.

One way that DNA splits is in home run calls. Each broadcaster has his own home run call, and even the ones who don’t have a specific call that they’ve honed over time do tend to have patterns. The home run calls show far, far more variety than groundout-to-second calls, and time-for-a-pitching-change calls, and Aflac-trivia calls.

Okay, then, let’s look at home run calls. What follow are 30 calls, one for each team's TV broadcast team. Attached to each are:

Category. There are six categories. They are Shouters, Homers, Downplayers, Catchphrasers, Growlers, and Moderates. Shouters shout. Downplayers stay calm. Homers have calls that are not just excited but unthinkable from anybody but a home-team broadcaster. Catchphrasers say the same thing every time, and it is either unique or said in a unique way. Growlers are notable for adding a little rumble or rev to their voices. Moderates are hard to say much about.
Time to acknowledgment is the time it takes from contact for it to become clear that this is likely going to be a home run. This is extremely subjective. Extremely. It is basically the moment I identified a significant lift in the voice.
Volume. Oh, man, more subjectivity.
Moment of glory: The words that come out of each announcer's mouth at the home run’s climactic breach of the wall.
And notes, where relevant.

Note: I wanted these home runs to have consistent significance, so all home runs came with a two-run margin or less, in the seventh inning or earlier. If I misidentified any of these broadcasters, or picked an unrepresentative call, email or let me know in the comments. I did listen to multiple calls for each, but mistakes slip in.

Victor Rojas (Angels)
Catchphraser

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35 comments have been left for this article.

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John Geer

(44)

Sam, the work you do with embedded video is outstanding. I really enjoy your articles, and seeing stuff I miss around the league.

Also, Bob Carpenter is known for frequently getting giddy and prematurely starting his home run calls on routine fly balls. Anyone else on this list guilty of the same? (Orioles broadcaster Jim Hunter does the same thing, but they may actually be the same person)

Jul 23, 2012 04:18 AM