How does a broadcaster say goodbye to a city?
Crafting the Call: Examining the final moments for the Oakland A's, Montreal Expos and Washington Senators broadcasts
Admittedly, it’s been a heavy dose of Oakland Coliseum content on this Newsletter the last couple weeks. I’ll get back to telling stories about different baseball teams, different sports, and sports-adjacent content in the near future.
First, I want to share with you a few excerpts from this week’s episode of “Crafting the Call.”
The theme of the episode was how announcers say goodbye to a city.
Naturally, we started with the Oakland A’s final game at the Oakland Coliseum. I attended the final three games and we recorded the episode the day after the final game.
Below is an excerpt, where we hear the clip of Ken Korach’s call of the final play on A’s radio and his sendoff. Then since I’m about to burst into tears, I pause, so my co-host Jesse Goldberg-Strassler can explain the Jewish meaning behind Korach’s line, “may those memories be a blessing.”
Next, we watched how the Montreal Expos announcers said au revoir to Olympic Stadium and the country of Canada in 2004.
I had composed myself enough by then to contrast how the game day presentations staffs in Oakland and Montreal set the tone with music, recognizing stadium workers, and the burden that’s on those employees — who are about to lose their jobs — to create a fitting goodbye.
Finally, we listened to the disastrous final inning for the Washington Senators in DC in 1971, when fans stormed RFK Stadium and the game was declared a forfeit. The final words of Senators announcer Ron Menchine convey the weight of the moment.
This entire episode was heavy.
It wasn’t really about breaking down the X’s and O’s of baseball play-by-play announcing. It was about finding the words when there is profound sadness, when you’re delivering a eulogy, for heartbroken fans of a baseball team that is leaving a city.
Here’s a link to the entire episode.
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. To help support our work, subscribe, like, comment, or send us a suggestion for a future episode.
Here’s a link to all “Crafting the Call” episodes.
If you missed my previous posts about the A’s leaving the Oakland Coliseum, here are some links.
Again, I’ll return to telling a variety of stories soon.