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

"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!" . . . "That ball is high, it is far, it is GONE!" . . . "This is Fred Haney, rounding third and heading for home. . . ." From our earliest years, radio broadcasters inform our impressions of the 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 the sole link between the happening and their public. If the broadcast was indelible, so was the event."¹

There is little wonder why devoted fans wax passionate on the subject of their favorite and not-so-favorite baseball announcers. Much has been written about the history of baseball broadcasting (e.g., Curt Smith's Voices of the Game and Storytellers, books by Jack Brickhouse and Ernie Harwell, and anything by or about Red Barber), but less has been written on the quality of baseball broadcasting. This paper identifies and examines five primary tools required to do the job well. It draws from interviews with baseball announcers and others in organized baseball, texts on the subject, and the files of the National Baseball Library.

The Importance of the Baseball Broadcaster

Two main issues frame this discussion: time and the 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 the pace is determined by the play on the field. This pace allows time for storytelling. In addition, the season unfolds over daily games, thus making a day-by-day companion of each contest and the announcer who describes the contest. The pace of a season creates the need for storytelling—enter the announcer. As F. Scott Regan has pointed out, "the announcer is the trusted friend who keeps the listener/viewer close to this companion."²

This leads us to the second issue—the role of storyteller. Regan states, "the baseball announcer must recognize that baseball is a cultural metaphor . . . [and that] the baseball announcer has a significantly different responsibility. . . . The game must be reported accurately, but reported through the eyes of an historian and described by a poet who has an ear for the romance of the game."³ This aspect of baseball broadcasting can be compared to the role of a griot, the tribal storyteller in parts of Africa. According to folklorist Kathleen White, the 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 the tribe: "I am Griot, master of eloquence, the vessel of speech, the memory of mankind. I speak no untruths. This is the word of my father, and my father's father. Listen to me, those who want to know. From my mouth you will hear the history of your ancestors."⁴

An effective baseball broadcaster is skilled at using the game's gift of time and its history to draw the listener into the game at hand. Beyond this skill, the 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 the 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 the other authors who write about broadcasting make their cases at the 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 the announcer must accurately relay what...