OK fellow Dopers, I need your stellar wit and screwy spirit. Either original or blatantly ripped off from movies or real life.
Here’s the scenario…
I have been tagged for the dubious honor of announcing a intra-company baseball game. Now this isn’t just a rag tag group of fat and balding IT guys (though there are a few of them too), the mixed gender teams include company executives. For example, the opposing team captains are the CFO and the CEO.
Fortunately, they have a good sense of humor, which will possibly save my career. I and a buddy have been asked to announce the game. OK. I’m thinking all we need to do is try and pronounce all the names correctly. Although even that will be a struggle with some of the foreign names. The kicker is that we’ve been instructed to be entertaining. Sheesh. Talk about performance anxiety. We have to be funny without being profane or offensive? (I should clarify that being mildly insulting will be acceptable, especially if the person is a white male.) Clearly we need to plan in advance. I don’t trust either one of us to avoid the HR landmines by being totally off-the-cuff and impromptu. We need some cue cards for some scripted banter.
I checked IMDB for quotes from Major League. A few might work but there are a slew of baseball movies (Bull Durham, League of Their Own, etc. and a ton of Yogi Berra quotes that I don’t have time to research. Can you help me out?
Quotes from baseball movies that could be used in announcing situations?
Quotes about baseball, Yogi or otherwise?
Situational (walk, strike out, dropped ball, etc.) comments?
Phrases / calls you’ve heard at real baseball games?
Stylistic suggestions?
Home run calls?
At-bat and on-deck name announcing?
Good nicknames? “Now stepping up to the plate for Team SDMB is Willie Hittit. Swing away Willie, and show the OP your stuff.”
Mods, if you think this should be in Cafe Society, feel free to move it.
First rule of announcing: you don’t have to talk all the time.
If you think there’s really a danger of needing some home run calls, here’s some classic ones:
“See… you… LATER!” (Bob Carpenter)
“It’s deep, and I don’t think it’s playable.” (Keith Olbermann)
“Back back back back back…” (Chris Berman)
“Swing and a drive…” (Mike Shannon, Joe Castiglione and about 38,000 other people)
Someone snares a hard liner: “There are no holes in that glove.”
And of course, don’t forget to throw in the following:
ground ball with eyes/seeing-eye single
can of corn
flare/Texas leaguer/dying quail
And the most important thing: no matter how much success Mike Shannon may have with it, drinking while announcing is a bad idea.
If you want to steal from a classic, you can’t do much better than the old Bob & Ray routine about a minor league baseball broadcast where every other sentence was a plug for the next team promotion – each more outlandish than the last.
Easily customizable, too. Try dropping in a few announcements for “unclaimed lunchroom refrigerator Tupperware day” or “the boss’ Bobblehead day” and you’ll be gold.
But of course, you have to say at least once during the game “Juuuuuuuuuuuust a little outside. Boy, the umpires never give us the close ones.!”
You could also steal from Triple Play 98 and do some fake commercials:
“Today’s game is brought to you by Chork! Not quite chicken, not quite pork, it’s Chork, the taste nature forgot.”
“And this pitching change is brought to you by The Tanning Depot. Save money the bulk tanning way.”
“The 7th-inning stretch is brought to you by The House of Saws, conveniently located next door to the House of Planks, and by Lobster Cola, the crustacean cola that tickles your nose!”
“A nickel ain’t worth a dime anymore.”
“It ain’t over 'til it’s over.”
“It’s like déja vu all over again.”
“The future ain’t what it used to be.”
“If the world were perfect, it wouldn’t be.”
“I didn’t really say everything I said.”
(Referring to the numerous Yogiisms floating around which he had not actually said.)
“Never answer an anonymous letter.”
Describing the 1969 New York Mets… “Overwhelming underdogs.”
When asked what time it was… “Gine licking time!”
“I want to thank you for making this day necessary.”
(On Yogi Berra day in 1947 in St. Louis. By his account, he asked a teammate to write a speech, and he misspoke, saying “necessary” instead of “possible.”)
“When you get to a fork in the road, take it.”
(Berra says this is part of driving directions to his house in Montclair, New Jersey. There is a fork in the road, and whichever way you take, you will get to his house)
“We made too many wrong mistakes.”
(On why the Yankees lost the 1960 series to the Pittsburgh Pirates)
“We have a good time together, even when we’re not together.”
(Talking about his wife, Carmen. It means he likes to have some time away, but also likes to get back together.)
“Nobody goes there anymore because it’s too crowded.”
“You can observe a lot by watching.”
“I usually take a two hour nap from 1 to 4.”
“Think? How the hell are you gonna think and hit at the same time?”
“Ninety percent of this game is mental, and the other half is physical.”
“Why buy good luggage? You only use it when you travel.”
“Always go to other peoples’ funerals otherwise they won’t go to yours.”
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll wind up somewhere else.”
“You have to give 100 percent in the first half of the game. If that isn’t enough, in the second half, you have to give what’s left.”
“It was hard to have a conversation with anyone; there were so many people talking.”
“If I didn’t wake up, I’d still be sleeping.”
“It gets late early around here.”
“Slump? I ain’t in no slump! I just ain’t hitting.”
He was told he looked cool in his summer suit by the New York Mayor’s wife. Berra replied, “You don’t look so hot yourself.”
At a dinner in an Italian restaurant, he was asked how many slices should be cut in his pizza. Yogi replied, “You better make it four. I don’t think I could eat eight.”
When asked what makes a good manager of a baseball team: “A good ball club.”
His wife, Carmen, asked where he would like to be buried. Yogi replied, “Surprise me!”
“In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is.”
“The one you really need to have. If you don’t have it, that’s why you need it.”
(From a commercial for AFLAC insurance.)
“And they give you cash, which is just as good as money.”
(from AFLAC Insurance commercial)
“If you get hurt and miss work, it won’t hurt to miss work.”
Hoo boy. Just curious – what have you done around the office to get tagged with this? “You there… Funnyman and Laughing Boy, talking about your Rotisserie baseball teams by the cooler! I’ve got something right… up… your… alley!”
My suggestion would be to work in workplace references about the players as part of the patter.
“Here comes Bob up to the plate, let’s see if he can rock the ball as hard as he did the vending machine when the Snickers bar wouldn’t come out…”
“Look at Susan run! You’d think the 5:15 out of Grand Central was at second base!”
I think it was my less-than-brilliant combination move of:
a) making a big deal about refusing to sign up to get elected to play on one of the teams
b) and mercilessly teasing the CFO when he got elected as a team captain.
The next thing I know I have the HR Director (sporting an evil grin) in my office informing me of the announcing job I “volunteered” for. She mentioned something about avoiding Milton’s *Office Space * fate of finding my desk in the storage room. Not to mention what might happen to my stapler.
In other words, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
