I was listening to a bit of the Reds game on the way to pick up my sons from their Mom. Chris Welsh was calling the game. Kyle Loshe was pitching for the Cardinals and Welsh says this about him: “Loshe works really quickly out there. He’s on the first day side of forever.”
Now I know that isn’t much but I thought it was pretty funny. What other sayings does your favorite announcer use, or have you heard someone say something mildly entertaining/classic/really annoying?
All time favorite though, is Marty Brennaman “And this one belongs to the Reds!”
Ha ha. Baseball, due to the way the game is structured and its unique pacing, which some think is boring, lends itself very well to radio, and there are so many unique personalities that have developed over the years that have said some pretty unique and crazy things.
“Put it on the board…” is the single worst baseball catch phrase of all time. All White Sox fans should be publicly shamed for being inspired, rather than humiliated, every time it is uttered.
After a spectacular 1977 season as a reliever for the New York Yankees, Sparky Lyle saw his role diminish when the team signed Goose Gossage for the 1978 campaign. Referring to Lyle’s sudden descent from winning the award for the league’s best pitcher to becoming expendable, teammate Graig Nettles quipped that Sparky “went from Cy Young to sayonara.”
A few years back the SF Giants had Edgardo Alfonso on their roster, and the KNBR radio team (Duane Kuiper, Mike Krukow, John Miller, David Fleming) eventually took to referring to him as Ed-wierdo El-fungo. Nothing against Alfonso, it’s just that they sometimes stumbled on his name and the alternate name came more naturally.
Bob Prince the one-time Pirate announcer had a number of pet phrases, one of which he would utter after a particularly hard fought game, the outcome of which was always in doubt: “We had 'em all the way.” It was particularly appropriate after the 7th game of the 1969 World Series.
Bob Veale, a former Pirate pitcher, (and others) are credited with saying “Good pitching will beat good hitting every time, and vice versa.”
I have heard announcer say, after a batter has finally raised his batting average over .200:
:Well he finally got off the interstate." (That is there is no longer a 1 starting his average as in I-95")
Well if we can include comments from players, there’s a treasure trove from Lawrence Berra that can be mined, but I’d like to offer one from the pinstripe quipster that I grew up with:
Pitching is 80% of the game and the other half is hitting and fielding. - Mickey Rivers