The greatest calls from the greatest broadcasters in sports history

During the Winter Meetings this week, baseball is announcing the Ford A. Frick Award to decide which great broadcaster is enshrined in the Hall of Fame. We’re taking a look at some of sorts greatest broadcasters, along with the greatest calls, starting with Russ Hodges. Hodges was a Giants broadcaster for 22 years in New York and San Francisco, and was inducted in the Hall of Fame in 1980. Fans remember him for his “Bye Bye Baby” home run call, but his most memorable call was Bobby Thomson’s home run on the last day of the 1951 season.

“There's a long drive... it's gonna be, I believe...THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT!! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! THE GIANTS WIN THE PENNANT! Bobby Thomson hits into the lower deck of the left-field stands! The Giants win the pennant and they're going crazy, they're going crazy!” and then he makes a sound that might be one of his vocal cords snapping.

Al Michaels was present for many memorable disasters – the earthquake during the 1989 World Series, the Don Denkinger call in the 1985 World Series, Dennis Miller’s entire broadcasting career – but even after 32 years on Monday-or-Sunday Night Football, Michaels is best known for the USA-USSR hockey game from the 1980 Olympics:

His “Do you believe in miracles? YES!” call is an all-time classic, and is the reason the game is called the “Miracle On Ice.” The moment is all the more impressive since he’d previously called only one hockey game in his career, eight years earlier.

After 32 years as the Dodgers broadcaster, Vin Scully was inducted into the Hall of Fame. He then worked 35 more years for the team, a whopping 67 years in the booth. Despite calling countless no-hitters, World Series, All-Star Games, and NBC Games of the Week, his biggest call came when a gimpy Kirk Gibson came off the bench for a pinch-hit home run to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series. Vin put a cherry on the instant classic by intoning, “In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened.”

The Seattle Mariners began play in 1977, and Hall of Famer Dave Niehaus was there right from the start, up until his death in 2010. He missed only 101 broadcasts in those 34 years – that’s 101 out of 5,385. If you’re a Nintendo 64 enthusiast, you also heard him as the voice of Ken Griffey’s Jr.’s Slugfest. The 1995 American League Division Series was a milestone for Niehaus and the Mariners – their first playoff win in 18 seasons. While Edgar Martinez’s grand slam in Game 4 got the full Niehaus treatment - “Get out the rye bread and mustard, Grandma, it is grand salami time!" – Edgar’s game-winning double in Game 5 was when Niehaus let loose with an exclamation of pure joy shared by the long-suffering fans of the Northwest. My, oh my!

Lon Simmons was a Bay Area broadcasting institution, doing play-by-play for both the 49ers and the Giants starting in 1958, when the team moved to the West Coast. When his station, KSFO, lost the Giants rights, he announced A’s games for 15 years, calling the final out of their World Series win in 1989 after the legendary Bill King got laryngitis. He even did a season of Golden State Warriors games. The announcer’s booth at AT&T Park is named after Simmons and Russ Hodges, and carries Simmons’ signature “Tell It Goodbye!” While his call of Jim Marshall’s wrong-way run was memorable (“He thinks he has scored a touchdown! He has scored a safety!”), his greatest call was a Steve Young touchdown run from 1988, where Lon almost blows his voice out in amazement as Young dodges the entire Minnesota Vikings defense. By the time the 49ers QB stumbles into the end zone, Simmons sounds as exhausted as Young looks

Holy Toledo! Bill King was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 2017, after 25 years as the voice of the Oakland Athletics. He also worked Warriors games for years, and he is still the only announcer to get a technical foul, when in 1968, he took off his headset and cursed out an official – though the expletive went out over the air on the crowd mic. But his longest tenure was with the Raiders, for whom he called all three Super Bowl victories, and the magical “Holy Roller” play in 1978. With time running out, Ken Stabler intentionally fumbled the ball forward, as did his teammates, until they could fall on the ball in the end zone. It was a piece of chicanery so blatant the NFL made a rule against it, and King’s call was equally wacky:  “Madden is on the field. He wants to know if it’s real. They said yes. Get your big butt out of here! He does. There’s nothing real in the world anymore!”

Born “Melvin Israel,” Mel Allen was one of the two first winners of the Hall of Fame’s Ford Frick Award, along with Red Barber. He became the Yankees play-by-play man in 1939, and continued announcing games off and on through seven decades, logging 22 World Series and 24 All-Star Games along the way. He also hosted This Week In Baseball from 1977 until his death, and even hosted posthumously in Claymation form – how’s that for job security? It’s impossible to choose one play in a 60-year career, so we’re going with "his appearance in The Naked Gun," commenting on an intense baseball blooper. How about that?

Gowdy was originally Mel Allen’s understudy with the Yankees, back in 1949, and went on to have a long career as the “broadcaster of everything” – baseball, AFL, NFL, college football, Final Fours, and eight different Olympics. He even has a national park named after him in Wyoming! That’s an immaculate career, with one of the biggest highlights being Franco Harris’ “Immaculate Reception,” where an impossible catch in a playoff game stunned the Raiders – and Gowdy himself.

Jon Miller was the voice of Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN, plus the longtime voice of both the Baltimore Orioles and San Francisco Giants. He broadcast World Series wins, Cal Ripken’s consecutive games streak, and all of Barry Bonds’ home run records. But Miller’s best quality is his humor. He has a stellar Instagram. He once saved a mistake by describing a home run by “Buster Posey…’s good friend Hunter Pence.” And his greatest call of all time happened when Ruben Rivera produced “the worst baserunning of all time.”

As much as Harry Caray seems intertwined with the Chicago Cubs, he was actually the St. Louis Cardinals announcer for a full quarter-century before moving to the Windy City. He spent 11 years with the White Sox, occasionally broadcasting from the bleachers, often without his shirt. He spent 17 years with the Cubs, delighting fans while mispronouncing names, swinging his microphone, and leading the crowd in the seventh-inning stretch. That’s related to this classic Caray clip, where he explains how he “never got the big deal about Cracker Jack.” Sometimes there’s no prize inside – how about that!

After two decades as a college coach, Rathery moved into broadcasting in the early '80s and never looked back. He’s got an easygoing style, a voice that will go all the way into squeaks during dramatic games, and more catch phrases than a T.G.I.F. sitcom lineup. A big shot is “onions,” a banked in shot elicits a “with a kiss,” and when a defender gets faked out, he will intone, “There’s a little lingerie on the deck.” But the phrase that still gets yelled at raftery on college campuses and in bars is “Send it in, Jerome!” from when Pittsburgh forward Jerome Lane shattered the backboard on a one-handed dunk. That’s disdain to the tin if we’ve ever seen it.

Red Barber was the Shakespeare of sports broadcasting: he started doing it a long time ago, and he invented many of the words and phrases you hear in a telecast. Can of corn? That was Red. When Chris Berman says, “Back back back” on a home run, it’s a homage to Red Barber. And sitting in the catbird seat is also a folksy Barberism. So when Roger Maris hit his 61st home run, you can hear Barber’s excitement – but he’s also relaxed enough to speculate about the reward money for the fan who caught the ball. Oh doctor!

Keith Jackson did every sport under the sun and also coined a bunch of expressions, including calling the University of Michigan’s stadium “The Big House.” Thanks to Keith, the Rose Bowl – which he nearly always announced – was the “Granddaddy Of Them All.” His style combined this sort of inventive folksiness with the dramatic voice and theater-like delivery of a serious newsman. Listen as he makes a three-course meal out of the word "incredible” while calling Kordell Stewart’s Hail Mary, right there in the Big House.

He started as a pure comedian, and indeed, he delivered the best cinematic broadcaster performance of all time in Major League. But as much as Uecker plays the clown, he’s a supremely talented broadcaster, about to go into his 48th season with the Brewers. He’s a Hall of Famer, he has a statue outside of Miller Park, and he’s friends with Mr. Belvedere. Sadly, the Brewers are somewhat lacking in dramatic baseball moments, but if you have ten or so minutes to invest, Bob Uecker’s discussion of a local convention for “furries" is well worth your time.

That’s a winner! Joe Buck was the play-by-play man for the St. Louis Cardinals for 47 years, broadcast 17 Super Bowls, and was so beloved that almost no one blames him for his son’s career. He did twenty years of Monday Night Football on the radio, along with the NBA, hockey, boxing, bowling, and even pro wrestling. His “I don’t believe what I just saw” for Kirk Gibson’s home run was an all-timer, but Buck’s greatest call was a different World Series home run, perfect in its simplicity. When Kirby Puckett hit his walk-off homer to win Game Six of the 1991 Series, Buck left it with “Annnnd we’ll see you tomorrow night!” 20 years later, his son Joe would use the same line for another 11th-inning Game Six walk-off, this time from David Freese of the Cardinals.

Gus Johnson may not be officially in the Hall of Fame yet, but he’s already clinched his spot as the most excitable announcer in broadcasting history. He’s called so many crazy upsets and memorable finishes in the NCAA Tournament, some have speculated that his mere presence causes the excitement. He’s not afraid to scream, yelp, or make a sound that isn’t even human when the situation calls for it, like at the end of UCLA’s win over Gonzaga in 2006. We also highly recommend searching YouTube for “Gus Johnson goes nuts” and enjoy the dozens of videos available to you. It’s the opposite of Heartbreak City.

Some announcers are ones you want for the biggest games and most important moments. And then there’s Bill Walton, who’s at his best when he has opportunities for monologues, hyperbole, stories about the Grateful Dead, and wild comparisons. His loquaciousness is especially impressive since Walton overcame a profound speech impediment, not to mention his years of back and ankle problems. Walton doesn’t really do NBA games anymore, but late night Pac-12 basketball is the perfect format for him. But it’s not like he ever held back even on pro telecasts, like when he compared Phoenix’s Boris Diaw to Ludwig van Beethoven. After a while, his broadcast partners realized you can’t stop a Walton rant; you’ve gotta just keep truckin’.

John Madden retired from coaching after ten years with the Raiders, and moved immediately into the broadcast booth, where he remained for 30 years. He worked for all four major networks, teaming up first with Pat Summerall and then Al Michaels. Madden was unlike any other broadcaster, predicting plays, punctuating analysis with onomatopoeic booms and pows, and handing out turkey legs as a reward for stellar plays. He’s personally responsible for America’s love affair with the turducken. But where Madden was a true revolutionary was with the telestrator – breaking down plays and things that aren’t plays. Here, as Super Bowl XXI winds down, Madden uses the blackboard to analyze the buckets for the postgame Gatorade shower

Howard Cosell was a former union lawyer who rose to fame with a style he called “telling it like it is.” He annoyed and delighted audiences for year son Monday Night Football, but he might be best-remembered for his relationship with Muhammad Ali. Cosell was one of the first to stop calling him Cassius Clay, and covered nearly all his fights, including his second fight with Joe Frazier in Jamaica in 1973. When Ali knocked him down in the first round – the first of six times – Cosell shouted “Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier! Down Goes Frazier!” You’ll still hear it repeated to this day, and not just when Kelsey Grammer takes a tumble.

Victor Hugo Morales is a broadcaster, journalist, and pundit from Uruguay who had a long career as a football announcer – and he also writes poetry. By 1986, Morales had fled Uruguay and its dictatorship for Argentina. At that year’s World Cup, Diego Maradona’s scored his “Goal of the Century,” a 60-yard run where he ran through four different England defenders, one of them twice. Maradona may have used the hand of God to score his other goal in the match, but Morales provided la voz de dios.

He didn’t originate the long, drawn-out “Gooooooal” call, but as the voice of soccer on Univision and now Telemundo, Andres Cantor is synonymous with goals in the United States. The USC’s grad’s exuberant calls became particularly popular when the US hosted the 1994 Cup, and he’s remained so popular that Telemundo sells his goal call as a ring tone. His most memorable call came when Landon Donovan scored against Algeria in extra time, lifting the USMNT to the second round. Cantor claims he almost fainted from excitement, though when you’re holding the word “Goal” for a full minute, you’re always risking passing out from lack of oxygen.

Aside from a brief hiatus due to personal legal issues, Marv Albert has been calling NBA games for the last 50 years. He’s also done six Super Bowls and seven Stanley Cup Finals, plus the Albert Achievement Awards for David Letterman. Still, the hardwood is Marv’s home. He can make a simple “Yes!” sound 25 different ways, like an eskimo describing snow. Here, Tracy McGrady scores 13 points in 35 seconds, and Marv delivers about 13 "yesses" for the ages. 

He’s not technically an announcer, but he’s spent time in the booth, and Murray is clearly a national treasure. Please enjoy this clip from 1987, where a wardrobe malfunction for the umpiring crew allows an extended pre-game segment with Steve Stone. Murray of course prefers the Cubs lineup – “The names on the Cubs are much easier to pronounce, and they sound more like baseball player names.”