Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
It doesn't seem that long ago to me that the word 'irreverent' seemed affixed to my name. 'Irreverent newcomer.' I went from irreverent to venerable in what seems to me like the blink of an eye.
I'm probably always guilty for rooting for a long series. Not either side - I don't really care who wins the game, but it makes for more compelling TV the more games you go deeper into a series.
I think what I try to do with all the naysayers, negative comments, or even people that think you can't do it, I'm trying very hard to use it as motivation and to add to that chip on my shoulder.
For more than a quarter century, I was fortunate to visit and play golf with President George H.W. Bush dozens of times, usually while paying a visit to the Bush compound in Kennebunkport, Maine.
I practice a lot. I practice in the winter when it's cold in Connecticut - a lot. I practice in my bedroom on the carpet - a lot. For all the practice I do, I should be a better golfer than I am.
I will never repeat something verbatim on the air unless I know it's accurate. And when you go to the source, sometimes there's a better story beyond the original story. That happens all the time.
If I walked back into the booth in the year 2025, I don't think it would have changed much. I think baseball would be played and managed pretty much the same as it is today. It's a great survivor.
The biggest kick I get is to communicate with those who are exiled from the game - in hospitals, homes, prisons - those who have seldom seen a game, who can't travel to a game, those who are blind.
You know, we - we start with a mentality that we'll take a sports project if its good. And we're certainly not on the lookout for them, because to be honest we don't have to. They walk in the door.
When you've done it long enough - I've done something like 21 World Series - just about every fan base has turned off the TV when their team lost and I was screaming and yelling for the other side.
My father got to see the first 10 years of my career. He implored me to always appreciate people who are not operating under any sort of false pretense or who weren't caught up in their own success.
You have to be true to the game you're covering, whether its being lite at times - I certainly try to be that way - but it is limiting because you're fitting it in around what's going on in the game.
In radio, you are the game, so to speak - you have to describe every aspect. In TV, Ive always felt less is more, and its really a question of my setting up the color analyst more than anything else.
To be honest, I've never been interested in how many games I've done and seen. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. All I know is I'm eternally grateful for having been allowed to work so many games.
There's nothing like Cameron Indoor Stadium where the kids are right on top of you and the Cameron Crazies are going nuts. Rupp Arena with the Big Blue Nation and the passion of their fans is special.
In baseball, democracy shines its clearest. The only race that matters is the race to the bag. The creed is the rule book. And color, merely something to distinguish one team's uniform from another's.
I just enjoy seeing people break through those ceilings when people press them down and say, 'He can't do this or that.' It's always fun to document those types of stories when someone breaks through.
I don't know who had a more tiresome, wall-to-wall schedule than my father, and I know what it's like to be a kid in that situation. He was gone a lot. He needed to be. I understood it. So did my mom.
My mom is an art teacher and is very much into the performing arts. What can I say? She is the female in my life and has guided me on how to act and conduct myself. A lot of my strength comes from her.
I don't think men like losing their hair, I don't think that's a newsflash. When you see people, start from Donald Trump and go down, you realize people will do anything to have some coverage up there.
In radio, you are the game, so to speak - you have to describe every aspect. In TV, I've always felt less is more, and it's really a question of my setting up the color analyst more than anything else.
Baseball is a spirited race of man against man, reflex against reflex. A game of inches. Every skill is measured. Every heroic, every failing is seen and cheered, or booed. And then becomes a statistic.
His doctors said he was, in many ways, the most remarkable patient they'd ever seen. His bravery, so stark and real, that even those used to seeing people in dire circumstances were moved by his example.
But most of all, I'm a part of you people out there who have listened to me, because especially you people in Michigan, you Tiger fans, you've given me so much warmth, so much affection and so much love.
Baseball is a tongue-tied kid from Georgia growing up to be an announcer and praising the Lord for showing him the way to Cooperstown. This is a game for America. Still a game for America, this baseball!
I think if you checked the attendance records of all the announcers, you'd find a lot better record than you would of anybody else in any other business because we love the game and have a passion for it.
I try to talk openly from how I feel. People may not agree with it. It may sound foreign to them. That's an uncomfortable position for some people, to be sentimental, nostalgic - it's all kind of the same.
We live in this world of tweeting, and social media, and anti-social media, and all the rest, so no matter what you say, there is going to be what people say is a firestorm. I don't know what a firestorm is.
If I categorized home runs that I've seen, without a doubt the monumental one is Henry's... but I've seen a lot of classic, great home runs. Gibson's was probably the most theatrical home run I've ever seen.
There are some times when sports rises to the level of news and when sports broadcasters acquit themselves as well as the best news broadcasters do, they aren't there to dramatize. They're there as journalists.
It wasn't like it is now. But for the types of teams we had, the fans were very good here. On some Thursday afternoon games, we'd get 25,000 fans. That was remarkable. This has always been a great Red Sox city.
Life has good and bad times. And to get through them you have to battle. Life is not all smooth. I've had my bumps and bruises, like anybody, but I've always tried to look at life like a glass that's half full.
I love Augusta. I get to cover what I consider to be the best golf tournament of the year, and I really would like to think that one day - God willing, CBS willing - I'd be able to say that I worked 50 Masters.
I kind of feel like curling combines this weird vision of people sliding down a lane, and it looks like it combines bowling and every bar game I've ever played. But I still don't understand what the hell it is.
If you tried to make a show for every person's particular interest, it'd be impossible because everyone is going to consume it the way they want to. All you can do is try to do an hour that makes sense for all.
I got a chance to host the 'Late Late Show' for two nights before they hired Craig Ferguson. I enjoyed it, but nothing can replace the thrill of calling an NFC championship game or a Super Bowl or a World Series.
I met Roy's father once... And I think that Roy's relationship with his father is still at the heart of what Roy does. But at the end of the day, he's trying to prove himself to a father he'll never really please.
Obviously as I'm getting older, I'm seeing changes in my body that I may not like... but I do love food, and I'm from the South. I'm not gonna lie, I eat fried chicken, I love macaroni and cheese, and I love grits.
You need to have a great, strong bladder to call professional sports because, especially in football where, you know, you don't know how long a half's going to last and then the timeouts happen and a incomplete pass.
People would ask, 'Why is your vocal cord paralyzed?' I said it was a virus. I didn't say it was an elective procedure to add hair to the front of my head. It was embarrassing. There's an embarrassing element to that.
I really love baseball. The guys and the game, and I love the challenge of describing things. The only thing I hate - and I know you have to be realistic and pay the bills in this life - is the loneliness on the road.
I think when I first started, I tried to make believe I was in the ballpark, sitting next to somebody and just talking. And if you go to a ballgame, and you sit there, you're not going to talk pitches for three hours.
Someone pointed out that Dick Enberg and Curt Gowdy are the only two ever to call a Super Bowl and a Final Four. So I'll be the third. I get a kick out of putting my name in the same sentence as those other two giants.
As a kid growing up, I was so in sync as a fan that that served me well through the years. I can feel the game. And I try to match where the game is with my inflection, with my - the tonal quality, with getting excited.
If you want to say that I am vanilla, then I can give you a long list of broadcasting giants who fall into that same category because all of them always had the same goal that is my goal to this day: It is not about me.
I enjoy the mental gymnastics that go along with matching voice to picture and vice versa and trying to accent the action as opposed to provide all of the action through my words. And that's really what play-by-play is.
In 1999, when Ted Williams came out and saluted the fans at the All Star Game at Fenway, I had a huge lump in my throat, and the producer is yelling in my ear to talk, and I couldn't, thankfully, and it was much better.
To me, doing the Olympics in 1992 in Barcelona for NBC, just seeing the Dream Team take the floor, was a thrill for me. I dont think there was another team in any sport with that high level of athletes playing together.
In all honesty, once you become a professional, number one, you're no longer a fan. I don't root for the Dodgers, really. I just try to do the game as best I can. And the winning and the losing will take care of itself.
To me, doing the Olympics in 1992 in Barcelona for NBC, just seeing the Dream Team take the floor, was a thrill for me. I don't think there was another team in any sport with that high level of athletes playing together.