COLUMN: Dissecting the beauty of the home run call

It iiiiissss…

Do you even need to read the third word of that sentence to understand? The third word used can vary — it is usually the word ‘gone,’ but sometimes it’s even longer and features a fourth word, like ‘outta here’ or simply ‘a homer’ — but whatever words the announcer selects, they always get the sentiment across.

The words “it is” can make up the most exciting single moment in sports. The words “it is,” when spoken the right way — whether through the crunchy static of an ancient radio mic or transmitted instantly via crystal clear, high-tech television speakers — can mean everything.

They are part of an intoxicating verbal cocktail, one equally familiar and unique each time around, that never ceases to amaze: the home run call.

A top shelf piece of home run commentary must be carefully crafted, a process that begins long before the words “it is” ever leave the announcer’s mouth.

No, it begins with the swing. This is the most malleable cog of the home run call, one the announcer has no control over but which impacts everything. Sometimes the crack of the bat alone is enough to identify a certain home run call. The sound of the swing — or sometimes the sound of the splinters, in the case of a rare broken-bat home run from Bryce Harper or Barry Bonds — can be almost as iconic as an announcer’s tone on occasion.

The swing, while sometimes a crucial prelude, also produces the next crucial aspect of the home run call: the flight path. In itself, the arc of the hit is not the most important, though the eventual landing spot of some long balls makes them more memorable — the recent walk-off home run by Cedanne Rafaela that was weakly tucked just inside of Fenway Park’s “Pesky’s Pole,” for instance.

But the course a baseball takes to the stands is important instead because it determines, in a rapid flash of seconds sometimes too quick to be truly consciously comprehended, how the call begins. 

Some home runs are close calls — wall scrapers, balls that bounce off of gloves (or heads, a la Jose Canseco). These begin with the announcer not changing his tone as the ball is struck, opting to wait beyond the initial instants of incline for more information as the ball rises.

Calls like this unfold slowly but surely as the ball gets closer to the wall, with commentators getting more and more certain the ball will leave the yard, voices escalating. Others in which the ball is crushed ascend to peak intensity instantly.

Regardless of how it is reached, it is at this point that we approach the impetus for this anatomy of the home run call, those two familiar words: “it is.”

That exact terminology is not always used. Sometimes “it is” gets shortened to “it’s,” other times a bit of length is added with “that ball is.” Baseball fans likely remember the alteration “she is” from quite a few calls, though it’s hard not to hear it in the voice of Vin Scully calling Kirk Gibson’s gimpy game-winner in the 1988 World Series.

The variations on the “it is,” of course, offer signature touches for our favorite, most outta-here orators. The Athletics’ Glen Kuiper is easily identified not just by his gravelly vocals but his use of “that baby is gone.” Just across the bridge in the Bay Area, legendary Giants man Jon Miller often puts things in another language with his “adioooooooos pelota!”

Then there are calls with entirely transportive sentences. FOX announcer Joe Davis has trademarked this in recent World Series games with his “this game has been turned upside down” for Yordan Alvarez in 2022 and “the legend grows” on Adolis Garcia’s walk-off for the Rangers in 2023.

The calls without a patented spot of lingo, however, are much more effective at their best.

Perhaps a piece of home run audio without a calling card is common, but when the call has an extra bit of juice and is memorable without the stamp of a sentence or slang term — that’s when an audio file gets etched into history.

Take the Vin Scully call of the walk-off shot from Gibson, in which listeners and viewers are treated to the minute detail that completes the concoction of the home run call… those extra syllables.

Scully stretches the word “is,” just as the ball clears the wall. It is not egregious or distracting, but it is enough.

When the words “it is” unravel, they become the pinnacle of sports potency. The plasticized pronunciation of “iiiiiiiisss” keeps us levitating, floating just as the ball is — the baseball and our minds hang there, rapt, enamored by America’s pastime and the anticipation of its coup de grace.

For one of the most monolithic moonshots in recent Atlanta Braves history, Ronald Acuña Jr.’s postseason grand slam in 2018, then-Braves radio announcer Jim Powell’s voice rose as soon as the ball left the bat. As Ronald’s earth-shattering slam left the yard, Powell did the opposite of Scully and shortened the “it is” to “it’s,” instead choosing to elongate the word “goooooonnnee,” a stroke of genius.

The space between “it is” and “gone” by Powell here, though merely a few seconds long, feels just about large enough to drive a U-Haul truck through. It is baseball, and baseball commentary, at its goosebump-inducing finest.

For home run calls, the words matter — but the spaces between them make all the difference.