SOME OF MY FAVORITE SPORTS ANNOUNCERS

Lynch Travis asked on Facebook asked for favorite sports announcers.

Red Barber and Ernie Harwell. Two southern guys who taught New York kids that a down-home drawl was cool. Laid back manners but eloquent as only southerners can be. Younger fans who heard Ernie also heard Barber who influenced him. When I moved to Ann Arbor in 1960 I was delighted to find that Harwell was already here.

Marty Glickman. On January 1, 1988, living alone on the West Side of Ann Arbor, I went to Kmart, to buy a cheap cabinet to put together during the game. I also, bought a green sweater to root for Michigan State. I got home after the game started, but on the car radio I heard Marty Glickman’s unmistakable voice calling conjured Glickman radio version.  As always, he called the game in unapologetically articulate and correct English, without screaming or filling short voids with annoying chatter.  Late in his career he was NBC’s sportscaster coach and called Ivy League football for PBS. There’s a fine documentary film on his life called, “Glickman.” By the way, State won the Rose Bowl, and only late last year did I finally threw away the sweater which had developed one hole too many.
 

In the eighties, living in semi-retirement in Connecticut, Glickman was asked to do play-by-play of a Knick game to be played in Hartford where the airports were snowed in preventing the arrival of the regular broadcast crew. He sounded like a Brooklyn kid with diction lessons (like Jerry Seinfeld).

 

Al Michaels. Aside from speaking excellent English in a pleasantly smooth voice, Michaels gifts of observation and description served well when, as ABC TV's  lead announcer of the 1989 World Series in San Francisco. Game three started with an earthquake and didn’t continue after a ten-day hiatus. The network called on Michaels to describe the quake and its effects and he did so well enough to win an Emmy for news coverage.
 

Vin Scully You can hear his influence, on the delivery style of Al Michaels’ and Central Michigan’s Dick Enberg.