Calling Games

Some schools broadcast and stream their softball games, which can be interesting.  Nothing like hearing a 20-year color analyst say a 20 year old softball player has a swing like Rusty Staub, who retired over 25 years ago.

I didn’t hear the 2012 game broadcast at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin, in part because I was too busy shivering through a doubleheader, but one of the Elmhurst parents caught the stream version and told me about it.  First off, understand that Clare was in a perverse zone.  She had eight at-bats on a raw, wet Saturday in April.  Six times she swung at the first pitch, and five times she made contact for an out.  But it took too much energy to yell.

We’d won the first game and were trailing by a run in the top of the seventh in game two, one out and a runner on second with Clare up.  She swung at the first pitch again, sending the ball in the neighborhood of 275 feet; to get a baseball distance, add 150 or so feet.  From what I gather, the announcer streamed the sound of his jaw dropping.

I think of this game from sophomore year because this week Cubs’ announcer Keith Moreland said he’s stepping down after three years in the radio booth.  Moreland was as good as his predecessor Ron Santo was unintentionally funny.  The one would have called Clare’s shot with a Texas drawl while the other might have missed it entirely on account of his toupee catching fire (true story, Shea Stadium).

And Harry Caray, aka the Greatest Frontrunner of All Time?  Well, it depends.  If he had Clare in his Bill Melton doghouse, Harry probably would have said something like, Where was that yesterday with the bags loaded?  Otherwise, Holy Cow!