The Greatest Sports Announcer Calls of All Time

We’re still a month or so away from the open of Fall camp for BYU and Utah Football. The NBA finals just ended. Most sports fans are probably watching a little baseball or hitting the beach or the lake for vacation. During this relatively mild time of the sports year, I thought it would be cool to post some of the greatest sports calls of all time. Of course these calls generally coincide with the greatest sports moments of all time. You’ll recognize many of them.

My personal favorite is Kirk Gibson’s home run in game one of the 1988 World Series since I grew up in So. California as a Dodger fan. I remember sitting around the TV watching that game with my family. Vin Scully was the TV announcer. In addition to doing Dodger games, I think he worked for NBC and did all the big games. However, his call of the home run was actually not as dramatic as the late Jack Buck, who I believe was doing the game on radio. Jack Buck’s call is on the Youtube clip. (And I believe Jack Buck was also the announcer on the Ozzie Smith home run)

That said, the best call in the entire clip is that of the CAL Bears’ miraculous kick-off return for a touchdown against their rival Stanford. I have seen this clip a million times but not sure I’d ever heard the call. They guys are just going insane. And the fact that the CAL player trucks the Stanford trombone player only makes it better. By the way, has ESPN ever done a 30 for 30 film on that game? They ought to.

Finally, I’d never heard this call in my life but the call of Billy Mills winning the 10,000 meters is crazy as well. The video is grainy and the lead runners are actually lapping other guys as the race ends so watch closely, but it’s an amazing moment and a crazy call.

The Youtube clip was originally posted in 2010 by Sara Hannon: