Every great moment in sports needs a play-by-play call behind it. Imagine watching a clip of some dramatic last-second play without the announcer. It just wouldn’t feel right. Some announcers have immortalized great moments with their calls, while others have tried hard to kill those moments. It’s certainly not an easy task knowing that whatever words you use to describe a moment will be replayed for years to come.
This week’s America Loves Countdowns® series looks at the five best and five worst announcer calls, complete with the audio so you can make the call yourself as to whether or not you agree. Keep in mind that these are within the context of a fairly significant sports moment, so Beasley Reese’s infamous description of a Kordell Stewart inaccurate pass which hit the endzone pylon in Three Rivers Stadium (“He may not be a very good quarterback, but if you take him to a carnival, he’ll win you a doll”) will unfortunately not make the list.

Best Announcer Calls

Jack Flemming – 1972 AFC Playoffs
The Immaculate Reception was a crazy and confusing play when it happened. NBC’s Curt Gowdy actually blurted out “what?!” in the middle of his call. But Steelers radio announcer Jack Flemming’s call is the one most closely associated with that famous play because it is so perfect both in the way Flemming followed the play and the way he showed the right amount of excitement over the miracle ending.

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Mike Keith – 1999 AFC Playoffs
When a truly great moment in sports takes place, it is up to the announcer to capture the excitement of the moment, especially if it is the play-by-play guy for the victorious team. Keith did that and more when he called the Music City Miracle, in which the Titans beat the Bills on a last-second kickoff return score. Every call of a miraculous play should sound just like this. Now if only the annoying color guy in the background (“he’s got something, he’s got something”) would have shut up and let Keith call the play, it would have been even better.

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Russ Hodges – 1951 NL Playoffs
It’s a classic call – “The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!” The stage was a playoff game to determine the National League champion, and the call was Bobby Thompson’s dramatic walkoff homerun to defeat Brooklyn at the Polo Grounds. The thing that makes this call so great is that, outside of the fans in the ballpark, no one saw this play. Few people had televisions in 1951, so everyone in New York was huddled around their radio, and this is how they lived that play.

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Jack Buck – 1988 World Series
Buck’s voice was like liquid crack. He just had that great, raspy way of talking, and baseball was definitely his best sport to call. When Kirk Gibson limped up to the plate to face ace reliever Dennis Eckersley in the bottom of the 9th inning of game 1 of the 1988 World Series, few people even thought he would be able to stand in the box long enough to complete the at-bat. What resulted was one of the most dramtic moments in sports history, and it was captured brilliantly by Buck. Instead of trying to come up with some dramatic statement, he simply just expressed his honest emotions, which was that of shock.

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Joe Starkey – 1982 Cal vs Stanford
Cal’s last-second multi-lateral kickoff return to beat rival Stanford was a crazy ending even before Stanford’s band marched out into the middle of the play. But what really helped immortalize the play forever was Cal radio announcer Joe Starkey’s call of the play. It is a journey thru the play, first from Starkey’s frantic excitement (“They tried to do a couple of — THE BALL IS STILL LOOSE”), to his bewildered reaction to the band (“Oh the band is OUT ON THE FIELD!!”), culminating with his magnificent arrangement of words to capture the significance of the moment seconds after it happened (“The most amazing, sensational, dramatic, heart-rending, exciting, thrilling finish in the history of college football!”). Quite simply the best call of all time. Nothing else is even close as far as I’m concerned.

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Honorable Mentions:

• Al Michaels – 1980 Winter Olympics: I think this one is overrated, or maybe it’s just lost its impact because I have heard it so many times, but the “do you believe in miracles?” line had such a long-lasting effect that it has to make this list by default.
• Gary Thorn – 1997 NHL Playoffs: In Mario Lemieux’s last home game before retiring, the entire crowd wanted nothing more than to see him score a goal in the final minutes, and Thorn’s anticipation of Lemieux’s resulting breakaway matched the crowd all the way.
• Bob Ueker – 1989 Indians vs Yankees: “Juuuust a bit outside. He tried the corner and missed.” I love that line!

Worst Announcer Calls

Phil Simms – 1995 AFC Championship Game
The Colts and Steelers played a legendary AFC title game that came down to one last hail mary attempt by Indianapolis. The ball came down in the endzone and bounced in and out of the hands of Colts WR Aaron Bailey. Simms nearly caused Steelers Nation to suffer a collective heart attack when he screamed out, “He caught it! HE CAUGHT THE BALL!!!!” For the love of God man – never EVER scream out something like that unless you are absolutely sure. You cannot do that to people! I always think of how I felt as a Steelers fan, but what about the poor Colts fans who briefly thought that they had pulled the miracle?

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Bob Harris – 1992 NCAA Tournament
Not getting excited about a great play is one thing, but it is also possible to get a little bit too worked up as well. The 1992 East Regional Final between Duke and Kentucky was the greatest college basketball game ever played. Most college basketball fans can tell you exactly where they were when they saw it (I was at Showtime Pizza in Greensburg). Hopefully not too many of them were listening to Duke radio announcer Bob Harris, because his gung-ho call of Christian Laettner’s dramatic last-second shot, while well-intentioned, is quite possibly the goofiest sounding piece of announcing ever! Listen to the other announcer fail as he tries to get in a word.

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Pat Summerall – Super Bowl XIV
Some people think that there is something cool about an announcer keeping his composure and calling a great play the same way he calls every other play. I couldn’t disagree more. If something amazing happens, the least you could do is raise your voice a few decibles. Summerall botched one of the most dramatic plays in Steelers history – the 73 yard bomb to John Stallworth in the 4th quarter of Super Bowl XIV which gave the Steelers the lead. Listen to the color announcer trying so hard to contain his excitement for fear that Pat will slap him.

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Joe Buck – Super Bowl XLII
Joe decided to take after Pat Summerall rather than take after his father, which is a real shame. Late in Super Bowl XLII, the New York Giants pulled off what is arguably the single greatest play in Super Bowl history. The combination of the scenario (Giants down by 4 and facing a 3rd and 5 in the final minute of the game), the historical significance (New England was about to become the first ever 19-0 team), and the resulting play (Eli Manning scrambling around and David Tyree making an unbelievable catch) may never be matched again. So what does Joe think about it? “And it is caught by Tyree.” Thanks for the memories on that one, Joe.

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Curt Gowdy – 1974 Braves vs Dodgers
When Hank Aaron stepped into the batters box to face Al Downing on April 8, 1974, everyone was primed for history. Aaron was tied with Babe Ruth for the all-time homerun lead, and one more dinger would make him the new champion. It was a long journey for Aaron, who had to endure racist threats as he got closer to topping Ruth. Finally he connected for the blast that would make him the king. At the microphone was a possibly drunk Curt Gowdy, who didn’t even seem to realize what had happened. Seriously, this is just a bizzare call of a really huge moment in baseball history.

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Honorable Mentions:

• Chuck Thompson – 1960 World Series: NBC radio announcer Chuck Thompson made a pretty decent call of Bill Mazeroski’s dramatic 9th inning homerun to beat the Yankees. Unfortunately, he completely mangled the details. Right before Mazeroski connected with the ball, Thompson said, “Art Ditmar throws…” But it was actually Ralph Terry who threw the now famous pitch. Thompson also proclaimed that the homerun had given the Pirates the victory “by a score of ten to nothing”. Oops.
• Greg Gumbel – 1998 Broncos vs Jaguars: When Jason Elam kicked a 63-yard field goal to end the first half, it tied the NFL record for longest field goal ever. However, if you were watching the game on CBS, you had no idea how long the attempt was or that Elam had just made history. Greg Gumbel called it like a normal field goal, completely unaware of what had just happened.
• Al Michaels – Super Bowl XL: Sure, I am biased on this one. I wouldn’t expect Al Michaels to have the same reaction I did to Willie Parker’s 75 yard TD run in Super Bowl XL (which was to jump on and hug everyone near me at Ford Field), but was it too much to ask him not to narrate the play in the middle of it like he is doing the freakin 11:00 news highlights?!