Marketplace of Ideas Blog

Between the just-concluded Olympics and the oncoming March Madness, as well as high school postseasons, opportunities are presenting themselves for announcers to lose their marbles and shred their own vocal cords.

YouTube has three selections of screaming announcers, beginning with Tampa Bay Hurricanes announcer Dave Mishkin:

The bipolar announcers in the last call announced an amazing comeback in the Texas high school football playoffs that, unfortunately, went on one kickoff too long.

The soccer announcer (number seven) sounds like our chihuahua.

None of these announcers covers Wisconsin teams. (For which our ears are thankful.) Wisconsin state announcers — the Packers’ Wayne Larrivee, the Badgers’ Matt LePay and the Brewers’ Bob Uecker are the main three — are models of getting appropriately excited at big moments without losing their minds.

Two announcers featured here who are enjoyable if over the top are both hockey announcers — Pittsburgh’s Mike “Scratch My Back with a Hacksaw” Lange and Buffalo’s Rick Jeanneret, who looks like Rodney Dangerfield and, well, sounds like no one else. Lange doesn’t let his hilarious lines — “Smoked him like a bad cigar!” “Get in the fast lane Grandma, the bingo game is ready to roll!” — get in the way of actually calling the game. As for Jeanneret, when a player named Brad May scores a playoff series-winning goal, what do you call that day? "May Day!", of course.