World Series Game Six And The Calls Of History

This is one of those posts that has been over 2 months in the making.

For baseball's most famous home runs, most are associated with one particular announcer's call. Even though more than one person would have called these games on TV and radio. It's just that the others are largely forgotten.

For example:
Bobby Thompson in 1951- "The Giants Win The Pennant!"- Russ Hodges
Carlton Fisk in 1975- "There It Goes...A Long Drive...If It Stays Fair...Home Run!"- Dick Stockton
Ozzie Smith in 1985- "Smith Corks One Into Right Down The Line, It May Go...Go Crazy Folks, Go Crazy!"- Jack Buck
Kirk Gibson in 1988- "This Is Going To Be A Home Run...Unbelievable!...A Home Run For Gibson...And The Dodgers Have Won The Game 5-4...I Don't Believe What I Just Saw!"- Jack Buck
Kirby Puckett in 1991- "And we'll see you tomorrow night!"- Jack Buck
Joe Carter in 1993- "Well Hit Down The Left Field Line...Way Back And Gone!"- Sean McDonough

Does anyone remember any other announcers calls of the above? Probably not. Although a few might remember Vin Scully's call of Gibson.

In the aftermath of the 2011 World Series, I figured Joe Buck's call on Fox would probably be forever associated with David Freese's Game 6 walk-off.

However, the past two months I have been scouring YouTube for videos of the Game 6 miracle, and I've found several calls of Freese's home run that are from various broadcasts of the game.

Feeds from ESPN Radio's broadcast, ESPN's TV broacast outside the US, the BBC, ESPN Deportes, and ESPN Brasil.

Which one will go down in history? Probably Buck's. I like it, but that doesn't mean it's my favorite.

Here's Buck's again:


Here's the ESPN Radio call from Dan Shulman:


Here's Gary Thorne's call on ESPN's world wide TV feed:


Here's the BBC's Simon Brotherton! Great stuff here:


Here's ESPN Deportes Ernesto Jerez:



Now comes the epic calls from ESPN Brasil. Does anyone speak Portugese?

I have know idea who these people are, or most of what they are saying, but they sure know how to capture the excitement of the World Series! I couldn't find a call just of David Freese's 11th inning blast, so you have to sit through a couple of innings, starting with the Freese's 9th inning heroics. But it is SOOOO worth it! The color man especially, is like Brazil's answer to Mike Shannon!


These last two videos just go to show you that baseball has it's own language- you don't have to speak the announcer's language to understand the thrill of it all.

So, I'm sure Joe Buck's call will stand the test of time. But there is no way, NO WAY, that these others should be forgotten. I wanted to make sure they were preserved for posterity.

(And for those of you who appreciate the Brazilian announcers like I do, here are all of their calls of all the Game 6 scoring. The internet doesn't get any better than stuff like this!)