Taking the Measure of Baseball Broadcasters: What It Takes To Be a Five-Tool Announcer

Abstract

Giants win The Giants win The Giants win pennant! ... That ball is high, it is far, it is GONE! ... is Fred Haney, rounding third and heading for home.... From our earliest years, radio broadcasters inform our impressions of game of baseball, impressions that are woven into our personal histories over time. As Curt Smith once said, With no picture to assist them, announcers become sole link between happening and their public. If broadcast was indelible, so was event. (1) There is little wonder why devoted fans wax passionate on subject of their favorite and not-so-favorite baseball announcers. Much has been written about history of baseball broadcasting (e.g., Curt Smith's Voices of Game and Storytellers, books by Jack Brickhouse and Ernie Harwell, and anything by or about Red Barber), but less has been written on quality of baseball broadcasting. This paper identifies and examines five primary tools required to do job well. It draws from interviews with baseball announcers and others in organized baseball, texts on subject, and files of National Baseball Library. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE BASEBALL BROADCASTER Two main issues frame this discussion: time and role of storyteller. The first issue addresses that magical aspect of baseball--time. The speed of time is unique in baseball compared to any other sport. This uniqueness applies both during a game and over a season. There is no clock in a baseball game because pace is determined by play on field. This pace allows time for storytelling. In addition, season unfolds over daily games, thus making a day-by-day companion of each contest and announcer who describes contest. The pace of a season creates need for storytelling--enter announcer. As F. Scott Regan has pointed out, the announcer is trusted friend who keeps listener/viewer close to this companion. (2) This leads us to second issue--the role of storyteller. Regan states, the baseball announcer must recognize that baseball is a cultural metaphor ... [and that] baseball announcer has a significantly different responsibility.... The game must be reported accurately, but reported through eyes of an historian and described by a poet who has an ear for romance of game. (3) This aspect of baseball broadcasting can be compared to role of a griot, tribal storyteller in parts of Africa. According to folklorist Kathleen White, griot was expected 1) to know and share tribal history, 2) to sing songs of praise, 3) to represent traditional values, and 4) to entertain. One griot's traditional opening chant proclaims his function to tribe: am Griot, master of eloquence, vessel of speech, memory of mankind. I speak no untruths. This is word of my father, and my father's father. Listen to me, those who want to know. From my mouth you will hear history of your ancestors. (4) An effective baseball broadcaster is skilled at using game's gift of time and its history to draw listener into game at hand. Beyond this skill, five tools required of a good baseball broadcaster are a knowledge of baseball fundamentals, truthfulness, an understanding of baseball's historical place in American culture, voice, and style. The importance of these tools is validated across spectrum of literature on broadcasters. The dean of standards for baseball broadcasters is Red Barber. Barber writes in depth, devoting several pages to each of these tools in The Broadcasters. Interestingly, all other authors who write about broadcasting make their cases at much more general levels of opinion, biography, or anecdotal recall. Only Red Barber writes an instruction manual for baseball broadcasters with unequivocal advice for how to be a professional. We're not about to contradict him! KNOWLEDGE OF BASEBALL FUNDAMENTALS It is self-evident that announcer must accurately relay what is happening on field of play to listeners. …