Crafting the Call -- Stealing Home
In Episode 9, we offer tips and cues for fans to broadcasters to ensure they don't miss one of the rarest plays in baseball
Crafting the Call is a YouTube series that I developed along with Jesse Goldberg-Strassler. Each week, we examine different aspects of baseball play-by-play announcing, offering our perspective as working professionals for fans, and advice for fellow broadcasters.
This week is Episode Nine and the subject is Stealing Home. Most steals of home are the back end of a first-and-third situation. We wanted to focus primarily on straight steals of home.
Here’s a brief clip from a college baseball game between Texas Tech and Texas.
Straight steals of home are incredibly rare. For example, I’ve never had the chance to call one in my 11 years with the Albuquerque Isotopes. Same for Jesse with the Lansing Lugnuts. It’s easy for fans to miss them and for broadcasters to not be ready for them.
We looked at a variety of examples from baseball history, starting with Jackie Robinson in the 1955 World Series.
We also analyzed two steals of home on the same play that confused two broadcasting legends when the umpire made a mistake, a third-string catcher stealing home for the Cardinals to win a game, and a future major leaguer star getting thrown out on a daring play when he was in college.
Here’s the full episode:
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Here’s a list of previous episodes:
Episode 1 – How to call an inside-the-park home run
Episode 2 – Vin Scully’s perfect words to describe Koufax’s perfect game
Episode 3 – Eck vs Gibson, four legends with four different calls
Episode 4 – How calling a Triple Play can be treacherous
Episode 5 — Harry Caray without the shtick
Episode 6 — Clocking a broadcaster’s fastball
Episode 7 — Opening Day philosophies
Episode 8 — “Touch ’em All Joe,” four voices call the end of the 1993 World Series