Let’s talk broadcaster bloopers.
We all have our favorite sportscasters and those we can’t stand, and we can debate our liked and disliked sports broadcasters, but let’s focus on mistakes … big ones … the funny ones and horrendous ones.
Botched calls are in the news thanks to the “hate-him-or-love-him” John Sterling, the radio voice of the New York Yankees. In the May 2 game between the Yankees and Blue Jays, the man was either not paying attention or mis-saw what he saw.
Now, Sterling has swung and missed countless times, but this one was epic. In the bottom of the second, Toronto’s Matt Chapman belted one to right. Yankee right fielder Giancarlo Stanton backed to the fence, leaped and crashed into the fence. At the top of the fence, the ball rested in Stanton’s glove for an out. Sterling called it this way, “Back goes Stanton on the track at the wall, leaping and she is gone. It is a home run.” Yankees co-broadcaster, Suzyn Waldman, who was calling the game with Sterling, said on the air, “No.” Sterling continued his error and said, “They’re all waiting, why are they waiting?” and Waldman said, “Because Stanton caught the ball.” Sterling recovered and congratulated Stanton on-air for robbing Chapman of a home run. One more thing though, the ball would NOT have cleared the fence. It was not a home run rob. It was a great double rob.
Earlier this season, Stanton was on the other end of a Sterling mis-call, also against Toronto. On this one, Stanton belted one and Sterling said, “The ball is high, it is far, it is gone.” As Blue Jay outfielder Raimel Tapia caught the ball easily on the warning track, Sterling added, “But caught. It is gone. But caught.”
Better than botched calls are malaprops, the mistaken use of a word in place of a similar sounding one, or bloopers in which the explanation or groups of words are funnier than reality.
Jerry Coleman was the voice of the San Diego Padres, a decorated Korean War Marine Corps combat pilot, a decent ballplayer – Rookie of the Year in 1949 – a good guy and also a treasure trove of bloopers. Remarking on a reliever warming up, he said, “There’s Rich Folkers throwing up in the bullpen.”
On a fly to left, Coleman said, “(Dave) Winfield goes back to the wall, he hits his head on the wall and it rolls off. It's rolling all the way back to second base. This is a terrible thing for the Padres."
On a missed fly ball, he said, “George Hendrick simply lost that sun-blown popup.”
Replacement umps were not taking any backtalk from players on game, so Coleman said, “Those amateur umpires and certainly flexing their fangs tonight.”
Baseball great and Mets announcer Ralph Kiner was a malaprop king. Some of his best: “Solo homers usually come with no one on base”; “All of his saves have come in relief appearances”; and “If Casey Stengel were alive today, he’d be spinning in his grave.”
Kiner also gave us, “The Mets have gotten their lead-off batter on only once this inning” and “There’s a lot of heredity in that family.”
Another great player and great guy was Yankees announcer Phil Rizzuto, who made more than his share of errors in the booth. “Uh-oh, deep to left-center, nobody's gonna get that one. Holy cow, somebody got it." Rizzuto often talked like a fan and once called, "All right. Stay fair. No, it won't stay fair. Good thing it didn't stay fair, or I think he would've caught it."
And one of Scooter’s best-worst was, “Well, that kind of puts the damper on even a Yankee win." (He was still on the air, just after a game, when he heard that Pope Paul VI had just died.)
Announcer Curt Gowdy once explained that a groundskeeper had played Major League Baseball, but he overdid it, remarking, “He is the only groundskeeper in the league who, at one time, used to be a former Major Leaguer.”
Gowdy was also famous for mistaking one player for another or miscalling a player’s name, but then even Al Michaels and Brent Musburger have done it countless times,
Chicago Cub announcer Jack Brickhouse said a singing rendition of the national anthem had been done “Acapulco.”
Now, every broadcaster makes mistakes in live coverage, and they can’t all be Vin Scully. Scully painted word pictures eloquently. On one occasion, he called a Dodger home run, but the ball was caught at the wall. After correcting the call, Scully softly said, “What can I say, but for one brief moment, it was Valhalla.”
As Mel Allen would have said, “How about that?”
Scully was always eloquent. He once said, “Andre Dawson has a bruised knee and is listed as day-to-day.” He paused and added, “Aren’t we all?”
So watch the games and enjoy the words'-eye view, as Chick Hearn called it. As Former President Gerald Ford said, “I watch a lot of baseball games on the radio.”
What’s your favorite sportscaster flub? Let me know at mike.blake@mountvernonnews.com.
See you next time.
