Play-by-Play Quotes

From minute one, I thought that after I called a game, I said 'Man, I thought I would enjoy calling a game a little more than I probably did.' I thought I would enjoy that part of it. I didn't have the fulfillment that I thought I probably would.

I never in my wildest imagination dreamed that I would somehow become a sports commentator.

I had fun pretending to be a sportscaster. People always think that was a down thing for me. I had the best job in sports broadcasting for two years.

I'd had colleagues tell me, 'You should be calling games.' But to actually have a producer call me and say, 'We want you in the booth,' I was like, What?

I wanted to be Red Barber, Mel Allen or Howard Cosell. I loved their personalities and all of their sounds.

Bruce Buffer will forever be synonymous with the UFC and is a living legend, but I very much enjoy when Joe Martinez works a UFC card. He's a pro with a great delivery.

When I'm sitting around watching a game with some friends, and we're all excited, and Jordan is driving in, we might say, 'Come on Mike, break me off a little somethin'-somethin'.' I decided to take that and translate it into what I do on 'SportsCenter.' Just add statistics.

I had no experience with broadcasting basketball games, so I took a tape recorder and went to a playground where there was a summer league, and I stood up in the top of the stands and I called the game.

The best basketball announcer is one who allows you to close your eyes.

I think by its very nature, it's redundant, you know, being the play-by-play guy on television.

As much as I enjoy TV, I've always loved radio. And I love doing the NFL games, the Monday night games, on radio. Because you are the game. I really enjoyed calling basketball and hockey on the radio, but the presentation is more specific - you're talking all the time.

You can make an editorial comment about the play while it's going on. You don't have to be bogged down by the details because the camera is showing the groundball to short.

One of my first heroes was Jim Robson, the hall-of-fame broadcaster with the Canucks and Hockey Night in Canada, and Jim Ross with the WWE and Howard Cosell was a big influence on me.

One of my main goals is to become a sports broadcaster. That is the ultimate for me.

Radio is the art form of sports casting. If you're any good, you can do a great job on radio.

Even talking about serious issues - it's hard to fit in anything around calling a baseball game.

I was a highlight coordinator. My job was to go in and watch games, watch and type. Basically every time the camera frame changed, I had to log it as something: 'Emmitt Smith rushed for 4 yards... Close-up of Jimmy Johnson on the sidelines... 37-yard field goal.'

The game is just one long conversation, and I'm anticipating that, and I will say things like 'Did you know that?' or 'You're probably wondering why.' I'm really just conversing rather than just doing play-by-play. I never thought of myself as having a style. I don't use key words. And the best thing I do? I shut up.

My dad talked a good game. [I'm as a] child got only the World Series on the radio.

Pat Summerall personified less is more. His play-by-play was so bare bones but so great because he had a great, deep-toned voice.

There's a little bit more of a freedom when you're doing radio play-by-play as opposed to television. I prefer the television side of it.

If Vin Scully calling a game is just as good in 2013 as he was in 1963, that's the way a game should sound. If Jack Buck were around today, I don't think anybody would ask him to change his style. My style has always been a little bit of a combination of old and new, if only because my frame of reference, personally, was different than that of Ernie Harwell or Jack Buck or Harry Caray. I was a younger guy. Just as Joe Buck's frame of reference is somewhat different from mine. But the nuts and bolts of how to call a ballgame well, I think remain the same.

The voice of Vin Scully has become the song of summer for generations of Los Angeles baseball fans and aficionados of excellence in sports broadcasting.

When I started as a color man in the booth with CBS, I would make footballs out of a roll of toilet paper.

I want to be the Howard Cosell of MMA.