List of calls to add...

[mtaystl03]

After reading the most recent TRTR article on the PbP, I got excited and started thinking about what calls I would want to put in the game. Here are a few, I figure if we put our heads together we can come up with a good number...by the way, what a great feature...

Home runs
"Good-bye Mr. Rawlings"
"That's levatation Holmes"
"You can put it on the board...YES"

Strikeouts
"He threw him a chair"
"He GONE"
"You can't hit the ball without swinging the bat, meat"

Those are just a few to get us started...

[sfeldkamp]

Well hit to [deep center]. Back goes [Center Fielder], he's at the wall. Gone. Home Run. [Winning Team Score] to [Losing Team Score] [Winning Team Nickname].

That's Denny Mathew's (royals announcer) standard homerun call, he gets a little more excited if it's a Royals homerun, but you don't hear that too often.

[Cras]

Originally Posted by mtaystl03

"You can put it on the board...YES"

"He GONE"

No PbP is complete without some Hawk Harrelson. Mercy!

[cdheer]

Originally Posted by Cras

No PbP is complete without some Hawk Harrelson. Mercy!

Gahhh. I just can't take Hawk. He's all yours.

--chris

[Gastric ReFlux]

Bring on the Hawk.

He gone!

Good guys, bad guys!

[rewc27]

How about a little Harry Kalas "Watch that baby. Outta here, homerun Michael Jack Schmidt"

[BPS]

"He slides into second with a standup double!"

[RBLwebguy]

Originally Posted by BPS

"He slides into second with a standup double!"

LOL

[Gastric ReFlux]

Originally Posted by rewc27

How about a little Harry Kalas "Watch that babby, Outta here homerun Michael Jack Schmidt"

Is OOTP2006 going to support middle names?

[USN Squid]

Jumanji!!!

[darkenigma510]

Touch 'em all, [player name], you'll never hit a bigger one in your life"*

for big homeruns in the world series

*in honour of the late, great, Tom Cheek

[Cras]

Originally Posted by cdheer

Gahhh. I just can't take Hawk. He's all yours.

--chris

I'll take him! Hawk is the man! I also do enjoy Ed Farmer, could you imagine those two in the same booth?!?


Oh come on now, stretch! Stay fair!!! It will!!!

[AstrosPhan]

Originally Posted by BPS

"He slides into second with a standup double!"

Like the above, anything said by the great Jerry Coleman...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Coleman
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/quotes/quocole.shtml
http://funny2.com/coleman.htm

[swishbish33]

Being born and raised in San Diego, I have the privilege of listening to Jerry Coleman, and his quirkiness just makes him that much better.

He had laser eye surgery in the offseason, and people joked that he'd stop the "Pop up to the second baseman...and it's gone!"

Classic.

[Exodor]

I wonder how long before someone creates a Harray Carray PbP file.

Bonus points if they include the "drunken, unable to prounounce player's names" Harray that you'd hear after the 7th or 8th inning.

[Twelvefield]

No doubt there's some great calls to be added, but there's one I'd like to subtract:

A close play situation, or a big play, where either the announcer says, "I don't believe what I have just seen!!!", or in the case of the blog, the player gets tagged out and he doesn't believe it.

Probably, there are instances in baseball where something happens that goes beyond belief. However, those things should be the rarest of the rare. MLB ballplayers play out hundreds of games in their lifetimes. Even many fans will have watched dozens upon dozens of ballgames. After all of that baseball, I wouldn't think that there's much left that defies belief -- I would suggest, in fact, that the whole idea of baseball is to find things to believe in. I own a copy of Men In Black, and have watched that movie many times, so even if a fly ball bounced off a flying saucer in a real-life game, I would probably believe it.

In the case of the player getting tagged out, I would suggest that displeasure, rather than disbelief would be the norm. A pro ballplayer would have been tagged out in enough close plays to know that it can happen on a fairly regular basis. It's just not beyond belief to be tagged out. However, if the player believes he is safe, then he would be displeased with the call. He believes that the call was made, but that the call was a bad one.

I guess this rant falls under the file of "personal preference", and I doubt the text team would really take my gripe into account at this stage. I am just really tired of "I don't believe what I have just seen!!!", as this was the kind of thing that turned me off of the PbP in the first place.

Thankfully, extremely thankfully so, the new PbP system is going to be user-edittable! I am confident that the new text team will do a truly amazing task of bringing text baseball to life, and I am really looking forward to it. This is just a small grievance I have had over a very long time about OOTPB, and if the text team doesn't get this one tiny item the way that I want it, I won't hesitate to fix it myself.

[Malleus Dei]

Originally Posted by BPS

"He slides into second with a standup double!"

Ah, Jerry Coleman...

"A day without newspapers is like walking around without your pants on."

"All the Padres need is a flyball in the air."

"And the Padres win the National League West...oh, just got a little excited."

"At the end of six innings of play, it's Montreal 5, Expos 3."

"Davis fouls out to third in fair territory."

"Edwards missed getting Stearns at third base by an eyeball."

"From the way Denny's shaking his head, he's either got an injured shoulder or a gnat in his eye."

"Gonzo leaps like a giraffe and grabs it."

"Grubb goes back, back...he's under the warning track and makes the play."

"Hats off to drug abusers everywhere."

"He can be lethal death."

"Houston has its largest crowd of the night here this evening."

"I don't mean he missed him, but he just didn't get him when he put the tag on him."

"I sure hope you're staying alive for the upcoming Dodgers series."

"If Pete Rose brings the Reds in first, they ought to bronze him and put him in cement."

"If Rose's streak was still intact, with that single to left, the fans would be throwing babies out of the upper deck."

"It's a basehit on the error by Roberts."

"I've made a couple of mistakes I'd like to do over."

"Jesus Alou is in the on-deck circus."

"Larry Moffett is 6-3, 190. Last year he was 6-6."

"Last night's homer was Willie Stargell's 399th career home run, leaving him one shy of 500."

"McCovey swings and misses, and its fouled back."

"Mike Caldwell, the Padres' right-handed southpaw, will pitch tonight."

"Montreal leads Atlanta by three, 5-1."

"On the mound is Randy Jones, the left-hander with the Karl Marx hairdo."

"Over the course of a season, a miscue will cost you more than a good play."

"Reggie Smith of the Dodgers and Gary Matthews of the homers hit Braves in that game."

"Rich Folkers is throwing up in the bullpen."

"Sanguillen is totally unpredictable to pitch to because he's so unpredicatable."

"Sometimes, big trees grow out of acorns. I think I heard that from a squirrel."

"That's Hendrick's 19th home run. One more and he reaches double figures."

"That's the fourth extra base hit for the Padres -- two doubles and a triple."

"The ballgame is over...in this inning."

"The ex-left-hander Dave Roberts will be going for Houston."

"The first pitch to Tucker Ashford is grounded into left field. No, wait a minute. It's ball one. Low and outside."

"The Padres, after winning the first game of the doubleheader, are ahead here in the top of the fifth and hoping for a split."

"The way he's swinging the bat, he won't get a hit until the 20th century."

"There is someone warming up in the Giants' bullpen, but he's obscured by his number."

"There's a shot up the alley. Oh, it's just foul."

"There's two heads to every coin."

"They throw Winfield out at second, but he's safe."

"They've taken the foot off Johnny Grubb!"

"Thomas is racing for it, but McCovey is there and can't get his glove to it. That play shows the inexperience, not on Thomas' part, but on the part of Willie McC ... well, not on McCovey's part either."

"Tony Gwynn, the fat batter behind Finley, is waiting."

"Tony Taylor was one of the first acquisitions that the Phillies made when they reconstructed their team. They got him from Philadelphia."

"Turner pulls into second with a sun-blown double."

"Well, it looks like the all-star balloting is about over, especially in the National and American Leagues."

"Winfield goes back to the wall...he hits his head on the wall and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!"

[The Professor]

Nothing is quite as fun as a good Colemanism, but here are a few Shannonisms from St. Louis:

"Well, folks, this game began as a tiny worm and is blossoming into a large cobra."

"Hideo Nomo is the biggest thing to hit Japan since they dropped that bomb on Nagashima!"

"He's madder than a pig caught under a barnyard gate"

"I just want to tell everyone Happy Easter and Happy Hanukkah."

"Things are not always as they appear to be as."

"Well, he did everything right to get ready for the throw, but if ya ain't got the hose, the water just won't come out."

"Gilkey was originally born in University City."

"Like Spring makes the rains come, so does the edge of the plate grow."

"The Dodgers are ahead by 5 runs or 3 runs or in between there somewhere."

"He ran to second faster than a cat in Chinatown."

"We'd like to say hello to all those folks listening in Monkey's Eyebrow, Kentucky."

--In regard to an official scorer's questionable ruling:

"Well, no one's perfect. Only one guy was ever perfect, Jack, and they nailed him to a tree!"

"This big standing-room only crowd is settling into their seats."

"It's raining like a Chinese fire drill!"

(After Brian Jordan was hit by a pitch for the 4th time on a single road trip): "Jordan must feel like a Ouija Board."

"He's faster than a chicken being chased by Ronald McDonald!"

(Referring to Mike Schmidt):
"the longtime, and soon-to-be, Hall-of-Famer."

"This game is off to a rather conspicuous start, don't you think. Jack?"

"That foul tip bounced up and caught him right in the groins...and that'll really clear your eyes out."

"A hit up the middle right now would be like a nice ham sandwich and a cold, frosty one."

(Broadcasting from New York under a full moon):
"I wish you folks back in St. Louis could see this moon."

"Our next homestand follows this road trip."

(Referring to a home run by Ted Simmons):
"and that's the bread on Simmons' butter."

"I've heard it said that if you know English, Spanish, Italian, and I think it's French, you can go just about anywhere in this world...except China where they have all those derelicts."

After a pause, Joe Buck suggested that Mike has meant to say "dialects." Mike responded, "Yeah, dialects! That's what I mean...but they've got a lot of derelicts too!"

"I wouldn't have seen it if I hadn't believed it."

"Don't bite off your head to spite your nose."

Joe: "Mike, the Cardinals would like to welcome a group of 19 French foreign exchange students in Section 382."
Mike: "Where're they from, Joe?"
Joe: "Uhh, France, I think."

A couple of years back, Mike and Joe were discussing the unflattering photographs of players that had been flashed on the screen at another ballpark. Mike's take on the quality of the photo selection was:
"Some of those guys look like the picture was taken while they were seeing their first UFO."
After several seconds of laughter, Joe added, "As opposed to their second or third."

"The wind switched 360 degrees."

"Boy, a cold, frosty Budweiser would be great about now"...long pause...then an "ahhh"

"It's raining so hard I thought it was going to stop."

"The crowd's on their feet for the Canadian Star Bangled Banner."

"Back in the day when I played, a pitcher had 3 pitches: a fastball, a curveball, a slider, a changeup and a good sinker pitch."

After a batter leading off the ninth inning with his team down by three tried to hit a home run but swung and missed: "He was trying to hit a three run homer with the bases empty. To my knowledge, no one in the history of the game has ever done that. But it could happen someday. You never know in this world of baseball."

"One run in this ballpark (Wrigley) is like a grain of salt in the Sahara Desert."

"Winning streaks in Pittsburgh are about as common as a 600-acre lake in the middle of the Sahara Desert."

"Albert ripped into that pitch the way the Cookie Monster rips into cookies."

"He's as happy as if he just received his first bicycle from Santa Clause on Christmas Morning."

"A couple of strips of bacon at breakfast and he'd a busted that ball out of here."

(The TV lights were on in the press box and the umpire stopped the game until they were turned off) "The reason you can't do that is the light will get in the fielder's eyes and they'll get hit right between the coconuts."

(On Whitey Herzog) "The key thing is, he has that photogenic mind."

"Both men could have been hurt and that would have wiped out two-thirds of the infield."

(Referring to a sub who has a good attitude) "Very seldom do you see him chipping his teeth on the bench."

"He's bringing the ball up there 95 mph or better. It's powder river. You like fastballs, munch on this."

"Everyone's on a pitch count now, you people down on the farms don't let major league baseball on your place or they will have the cows on a pitch count."

"So Taguchi, who wears number 99, unless you stand him upside down and then it's 66."

"He hails from the island of Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is an island isn't it? Well, just try to swimming off of it and I guess you'll find out."

(About a game in Montreal) "This game is moving along pretty quick, it must have something to do with the exchange rate."

"Well that's the life of a reliever. It's either a mountain or a valley, there's no in-between. You either get all of the glory or all of the goat hair."

(A fan hit with a foul ball) "And that youngster will leave the stadium with a souvenir today. Not a ball, but a nice looking bruise."

"Acevedo tried to sneak that pitch past Pujols on the inside corner, that's like trying to sneak the sun past the rooster."

"popped up into foul territory and out of play, oh that ball landed right in that lady's Busch"

Baseball can be such fun

[Twelvefield]

Wow, brilliant! Now that made my day!

[kcjoe]

Wow! This post alone was worth the price of Admission!!!