The home run is the baseball pxp man’s best friend. During a typical three-hour baseball game, the ball is only in play for about 10 minutes. Of those 10 minutes, most of the action is routine- balls, strikes, ground balls, routine fly balls, etc. Thus, the home run gives an announcer a chance to stretch out the vocal chords, build some excitement and show some creativity and uniqueness.
Over the years, home run calls have ranged from the classic to the horrible to the downright bizarre. Below are some of the home run calls I could find online, with a test for all of you know-it-alls at the bottom. And, of course, this post wouldn’t be complete without a home run call from yours truly.
We’ll start with Kirk Gibson’s famous home run in the 1988 World Series, courtesy of Jack Buck:
Jack Buck calls Kirk Gibson Home Run
The video below is of Harry Kalas, the late Phillies announcer. His signature “Outta Here” will always be remembered. Here is the last time he ever uttered that call:
There’s also John Sterling’s famous “It is high, it is far” call, followed by some sort of catch phrase for whoever hit the homer. He’s butchered the call many times, thinking the ball would be gone, only to see it stop at the warning track. Here, he went into the wrong catch phrase:
Often times, the best home run calls are the unscripted ones, where pure emotion shines through. Here are a couple examples of that:
Then there’s this great Joe Buck commercial. Whenever I sought the opinion of people for my own home run call, someone would inevitably recommend this:
As promised, here’s a home run call from your truly:
So here’s your test. Below is a link to a series of home run calls (click #7 on the playlist on the right side of your screen). In the comments section, write, in order, the pxp announcers calling the home runs. Whoever gets the most correct, wins.
