Back in the day, if you wanted to be a successful baseball broadcaster, you had to have a catchphrase. If you just, y'know, told people what was happening on the field then you were boooooooooring and they'd ship you off to Palookaville or wherever.
You want examples? Oh, we got examples.
Mel Allen: How a-bout that?
Phil Rizzuto: Holy Cow!
Vin Scully: Forget it!
Red Barber: Oh Doctor!
Jack Buck: That's a winner!
Harry Caray: Holy Cow!
Well, we didn't say they had to be an original catchphrase, now did we? And what is it with all those hallowed heifers, anyway. Did the baseball writing community convert en masse to Hinduism?
In any case, those days are long gone and all it takes now to be a baseball talkie guy (we ran out of synonyms, sorry) is to repeat decades-old tropes of so-called wisdom that ruins the game for those of us who know better and miseducated the people who don't.
We'll take a thousand holy cows over one more talking head blathering on about an 'RBI man' needs to be 'make some productive outs' and 'bunt the runner over to third.'
Yeah, how a-bout that?
