Inspired by this month’s Learning the Ropes feature, Justin Kline lists his favorite sportscasters.
One of the reasons I chose to take a look at the world of sports broadcasting for this month’s Learning the Ropes feature is because, as a sucker for big moments, it’s hard to imagine sports without the men and women who lend their voices to the broadcasts.
You get familiar with these people over time and, eventually, can’t imagine watching your teams play (on television or otherwise) without hearing them. Rick Jeanneret is still calling some Buffalo Sabres games almost 50 years after he first grabbed a team microphone, and I’ll never get tired of hearing “Top shelf, where Mama hides the cookies!” when a Sabre beats a goalie up high. I can’t watch wrestling without imagining Jim Ross calling the action in his thick Oklahoma accent, breathlessly selling the action for us at home and ramping up the intensity of a match, and I know many older folks feel the same way about Gordon Solie’s work. The greatest broadcasters not only show us their passion for the game but also make us feel as they do.
With that said, this month’s feature got me thinking about people who can make any game must-see TV or are worth running to YouTube for.
In my opinion, nobody’s ever done it as well as Vin Scully. Whether he was calling games for the Los Angeles Dodgers, which was his best-known gig, or getting called up to the booth for NFL football, you always knew you were in for a treat when Scully was on the mic. He always knew when to let his excitement for a game come through and when to let the moments breathe, to let the crowd noise take over and tell a story without interruption (see his call of Kirk Gibson’s 1988 World Series homer, itself a legendary sports moment). He could explain the action perfectly (Sandy Koufax’s 1965 perfect game) and, as became a custom with Dodgers games, could tell stories like no other (like the time he and Jackie Robinson went ice skating and raced each other). I don’t think anyone will ever be as good at doing everything as Scully was.
If you’re really into college hoops, you might have a strong opinion either way about the team of Bill Walton and Dave Pasch (really, though, it’s just about Walton). I love their work. It’s like a classic comedy duo with Walton as the wild card and Pasch as the straight man he plays off of. The conversations won’t always touch on what’s currently happening during a game, if it even touches on basketball, but it’s a charming experience that makes me feel like I’m part of a free-flowing conversation at a game or a sports bar with these guys. This team is one of my favorite reasons for staying up late to watch Pac-12 basketball.
The last person I’d like to highlight is Jessica Mendoza, the only woman regularly calling Major League Baseball games. Her debut three years ago generated a lot of heat from the “women can’t do baseball” set, but Mendoza — herself an Olympic gold medalist in softball — has stuck around because she knows the game as well as anyone in the broadcast booth. She and Matt Vasgersian are my favorite national broadcast duo in the sport for their insightful analysis and obvious love of the game without being inaccessible for viewers. I don’t know how anyone who’s listened to Tim McCarver and Joe Morgan call baseball games can say Mendoza is the one who’s not doing the game any favors by being there. We need more Mendozas and Doris Burkes in the sports broadcasting world.
