One of the things that makes baseball exciting is watching someone hit a home run. In yesterday's 17 Spring Training games, 32 home runs were hit, including 4 by the Phillies (they have just been so good these past few years!), one by Puerto Rican catcher Jorge Posada, one by the A's Coco Crisp (I just love his name!), and one by Padres' second baseman Orlando Hudson, which was off Cy Young winner Tim Lincecum (another guy that I think I would recognize standing in line at the bank, unless he gets a haircut). When you're at the ball park, there's nothing more exciting than watching a ball go over the fence, especially if it's in your team's favor. The crowd goes wild, the drunk fans get wilder, and the whole place just gets electrified with energy. If you're sitting at home watching a game on TV, you have to count on the play-by-play announcer to put a little excitement into it. From Phil Rizzuto's "Holy cow!" to Chris Berman's "backbackbackbackback!", we depend on the announcers to give us their trademark home run call. As a kid I used to watch Ralph Kiner and Tim McCarver doing the commentary for Mets games, and neither one of them was very exciting. Harry Caray was legendary, but by the time I started watching him, he was very old and didn't seem to know what was going on. Even my all-time favorite duo of ESPN's John Miller and Joe Morgan didn't have too exciting of a home run call. Luckily the Nationals' announcer, Bob Carpenter, has a trade mark "SEE...YOU...LATER!" that is exciting enough; hopefully I'll hear it a lot this year.
Well, we are 19 days away from Opening Day, and 22 days away from our first visit to Nationals Park. There is a televised game today between the Yankees and Nationals, and one on Monday between the Orioles and the Pirates. Whether it's an "oppo" (opposite-field home run, to us baseball nerds) or a long-ball that lands in the next zip code, I hope I get to use my own trademark home run call: "Buh bye!"
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