Recently an old friend of mine posted the “Iron Bowl” call from this year’s Auburn-Alabama game on Facebook. For those of you who don’t know the story Alabama and Auburn, both battling for a shot at the national championship, were tied with only one second left on the game clock as Alabama lined up to try an improbable 57 yard game-ending field goal. Just in case, Auburn had positioned a player in the end zone to try and run the ball back and score a touchdown in the event the kick came up short. But really – what are the chances of someone running back a kick from one end of the field to the other on the last play of the game? A million to one, right? (So – you’re saying there is a chance…) Anyway – listen to the call as this play unfolds:
An instant classic – but only one of many great calls that go along with these sorts of things. Here is a partial list of some of my favorites.
“The Giants Win the Pennant!, the Giants win the Pennant!”
No two teams had ever finished tied at the end of the National League baseball season until, in 1951, the New York Giants improbably raced back from 11 games out to catch the Brooklyn Dodgers and set up a three game playoff for the NL title. For you non-American readers the winner of the league title is said to win the “pennant” – a mythical flag denoting you have conquered all the other teams for that year. The Dodgers, who at that time had never won a World Series (the next stage of the competition) look poised to advance to the Fall Classic as they held a three run lead in the last inning as the Giants tried vainly to come back. Then a rally started – one run came across and two men were on base as Bobby Thompson came to the plate to face Dodger pitcher Ralph Branca. Two runs still separated the teams – things still looked grim for the Giants – in New York a high school kid skipping school turned on a reel to reel tape recorder to capture Russ Hodges, the Giants announcer, calling the last outs of the season. What he captured is the only known recording of what has become the most iconic baseball call of all time – “The Shot Heard Round the World”:
Here’s Your Ball Game Folks…
There is a great Brent Musburger call of the pass Doug Flutie threw to beat Miami on the day after Thanksgiving in 1984, but I prefer the local radio call, which captures perfectly the mood of those who had watched Flutie’s career at BC. There was, even amongst those who knew just how good he was – who had seen him take a school that was lucky to get one win a year out of the likes of Holy Cross or William and Mary and transform it into a nationally ranked program, a reluctance to fully believe what we were seeing. He’d beaten Penn State, Syracuse, Clemson, gone to bowl games, shot to the top of the Heisman trophy race – but – Miami? I mean – those guys were like a pro team, coached by Jimmy Johnson, Bernie Kosar at QB, defending national champs – on national TV – a football program that even now commands national coverage via such films as ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary “The U”. It’d be nice just to stick with them for a while – but he couldn’t actually lead BC to victory – could he? Listen as the announcer's voice goes from a matter of fact, "he uncorks one towards the end zone" to the football equivalent of the "Hallelujah Chorus".
I Don’t Believe What I Just Saw
So we had a few people over to watch the first game of the World Series – it was supposed to be much more personal, but the Red Sox had been swept by the Oakland A’s so it was an all California Series pitting the heavily (really heavily) favoured A’s against the Dodgers. The Dodgers were at even more of a disadvantage because their best player – MVP candidate Kirk Gibson, was injured and couldn’t play. His legs were unable to hold him up in any meaningful way as his Achilles tendons were shredded. Nonetheless, as the first game of the Series neared a climax Dodger manager Tommy Lasorda checked to see if Gibson could haul himself to the plate to make one appearance if the Dodgers had the tying or winning runs on base. Gibson went underneath the stands where he practiced swinging the bat against a practice tee. “Thwack!” would go the bat and Gibson would grunt with pain. “THWACK!” “AAAARGH!”. Finally word came back – “He thinks he has one swing in him”. So Lasorda put him in, with two outs in the bottom of the ninth, to face the best pitcher in the game, Dennis Eckersley. He could hardly stand up. So we’re sitting around, eating pizza, having a couple of beers, when someone says – “Hey – they put Gibson in – this might be interesting”. So we watched the game – and this happens:
That was the amazing Vin Scully on that call – and we’ll get to Vin. But his wasn’t the best call that day – Vin knows that on TV the pictures often do the best talking. On radio though there was this magic call by Jack Buck – who can’t believe…
…what he just saw.
Vin the Poet
Scully was doing TV work on the night Gibson hit his home run. That was 1988 and it was amazing that Scully was the Dodgers play-by-play announcer that year – after all, he had started with the Dodgers when they were in Brooklyn back in 1950. In the many years since 1988 no one has ever been better than Scully as the Dodgers regular announcer. Of course, no one has been worse. That’s because Scully is still at it – in 2013, - sixty-four years after he first called a game at Ebbets Field. Scully has many great moments behind the microphone, but only one that I know was published, more or less, as a piece of poetry. His call of the last half-inning of Sandy Koufax’s perfect game in 1965 was transcribed and published, on its own, as a poem. His descriptions of the crowd, the batters, the players in the dugout and on the field painted a word picture so vivid that there really was no reason not to view the extemporaneous call as exactly that – poetry. Here is the actual broadcast of that half-inning, as it happened.
Who Stole the Ball?
Of course while there is a place for the classic restraint and poise of Scully (and that place is Los Angeles, where basketball announcer Chick Hearn did the same for the Lakers) there is also a need for the unrestrained belt it out joy of the event epitomized by no one more than Johnny Most, the chain smoking, coffee swilling, acid gargling announcer for basketball’s Boston Celtics. Johnny is who I grew up listening to – and this is his most famous of many great moments. The final play of the 1965 NBA semi-finals – the Celtics only up by one point as Philadelphia looks to inbound the ball under their own basket. Can anything be done to stop Wilt Chamberlain from scoring to destroy the Celt’s drive for a seventh straight championship – can any person step up? Well, there is one guy – but before that let’s just put Johnny Most in perspective – Johnny was what’s called a “homer” – he was a fan of the team he announced for, and he let you know it. So before leading in to the famous call from 1965 listen to classic Johnny telling the Detroit Pistons how much he “appreciates” their efforts on the court against the Celts – that goes right in to the call that now resides in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
I Don’t Speak Argentinian, But
I think this guy is pretty happy…
I’ll Tell Ya – I Gotta Lump In Me Throat From That…
Dublin, 2007. With Ireland’s usual rugby home ground under re-construction at Landsdowne Road the Gaelic Athletic Association had offered its 80,000 seat stadium Croke Park to the Irish Rugby team to host its “Six Nation’s” matches. The only difficulty – one of those games is against England, and Croke Park is the site of the brutal massacre of Irish civilians by a British armoured vehicle – holy ground, typically not open to “foreign” sports. Before each Six Nation’s match the anthems of the countries are played – what would happen when the English anthem “God Save The Queen” is played at Croke Park – will it be booed? Shouted down? Will a riot break out? Irish fans respectfully wait through the song, leading the English announcer to ask “What was the fuss about”. Then the Irish anthem is played – listen, and watch.
Oh, by the way, Ireland 43, England 13.
The Band is On the Field
California and Stanford play “The Big Game” every year – and in 1982 it really was something big. Stanford’s all-everything quarterback John Elway led his team to a touchdown to give them a lead with only four seconds left to play. All Stanford had to do was tackle the ball carrier on the kickoff and the game was theirs. But there is a rule in American football that harkens back to its rugby roots – you can only throw the ball forward once per play – but you can throw it backwards as long as you aren’t tackled – and Cal did exactly that. The Stanford band forgot the rule and wandered on to the field thinking the game was over – and paid the price - (watch the trombone player get crushed at the end of the play). But the play continued and, after conferring, the referees made their ruling - listen to the emotion in the voice of the announcer as he realizes that the California Bears have pulled off what is forever to become known as “The Play”.
Yes, Yes I Do.
And then there is this.
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