LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: Fuck the Midwestern sensibility... my problem is that he often makes no sense. At the risk of flattering myself (which I already do a couple of times a night, once the baby goes to sleep), I'm a pretty good listener-- pretty good at subtext, and not so bad at figuring out what someone wants when they are speaking a foreign language. There are moments in each game-- in a good game, a handful or two; in a bad game, every half-inning, at least-- that Wayne Hagin calls where I don't know what is going on. I literally don't understand what he is saying or what is happening; at these moments, if not for crowd noise, I wouldn't have any clue. Sometimes it's hilariously bad (as Lukas chronicles). Most of the time, it's as painful as having someone take 100 words-- most of them ill-chosen-- to describe a successful sacrifice bunt. Do you know how I have that in my analogue repertoire? It's thanks to Wayne Hagin. Hagin gets you in the general vicinity of the play that's developing, then leaves you in the middle of a cross-walk with details speeding at you, 100mph. Words being thrown in that shouldn't be there; the play developing and finalizing as he continues to ramble -- the staple has always been the crowd reaction, prior to him getting halfway through his call. I�ve enjoyed a few of the parodied Hagin calls that I've seen on a few other message boards. (IIRC, one was Scout. com) These are from memory, but close enough. "And the 1-2 pitch to Wright, ripped down the left field line and the left fielder is coming over and he strides towards the ball and he goes down and he reaches out his glove. Into his glove goes the ball, as it just avoids touching the grass to become a base-hit. David Wright with a lineout to the leftfielder, who went over and stretched out to make a wonderful play." "Groundball up the middle. The shortstop Reyes shuffles to his left, scoops it up with the glove contained within his left hand, transfers to his throwing arm to prepare for what surely will be a close play (crowd applauds out), glares towards the first base bag, fires across the diamond to a waiting Daniel Murphy. And with a stern stretch, Daniel Murphy sees the ball into his waiting mitt in which he looks to the umpire in anticipation of his arm gesture which will indicate whether the runner is safe or out, and with a glimmer in his right eye, the umpire raises his right arm in a motion that indicates that the ball has reached the first baseman's mitt before the runner has touched the base. What we have just witnessed is out number one." Later