If you listened yesterday - I caught three innings in the car - The Master didn't sound 79 and older than Charo (she's just 77, goochie-goochie!). He chewed on each batter as if it were a bite of Beyonce. But in his grand moment of Opening Day - the Giancarlo Stanton home run call that has been anticipated since December - Sterling delivered one of the most disappointing hollers of his 48-year play-by-play career.
Here's how it looks, in verse:
Swung on and drilled to deep right center field,
It is high, it is far, it is GONE!
In his first Yankee at bat!
Giancarlo... non si pue de parlo!
It is a Stantonian home run,
A two-run blast to right-center
In his first Yankee at bat!
Today, the Internet is icing its forehead, searching for answers.
Deadspin: "What the hell is John Sterling's home run call for Giancarlo Stanton?"
Fox Sports: "Famed broadcaster leaves fans baffled over Stanton home run call.""
CBS Sports: "John Sterling's new Italian home run call for Giancarlo Stanton left many people confused."
And on and on. Nobody seems to have gotten it, or to appreciate it, or to fathom it. Most everybody notes that Stanton is not Italian, that the translation itself says there are no words for it - and the best defense by Sterling's fans - i.e., us - is that it surely will be replaced by something catchier.
Now, you could argue that controversy brings clicks, and that by going into the ozone, The Master has just pulled off a crafty public relations coup. With this bewildering call, he will generate more attention than ever. But to anyone who has followed Sterling for the last half century - that is, we who remember White-Out - that notion doesn't parse. Sterling is not the type to purposely mail in a clunker. This call is his Geraldo moment in Al Capone's vault, and by Easter Sunday - considering the 2018 Blue Jays bullpen - he might have repeated it a dozen times. I don't think this call is going to grow on us, because - well, there's no connection to Stanton, to baseball, or to anything. You might argue that singing about the Grandyman didn't either, but frankly, this one just sounds... unSterlinglike.
I have to wonder: Doesn't The Master have anybody who would say, "Dude, that aint gonna work. Sing a song. Go nuclear. Try something else, anything else. Why are you going Italian?" In interviews before the season, The Master expressed his own concern over the call. Apparently, nobody stepped forward with something better.
Coupled with a game-ending gasp of a WinWarble - (which I've only heard about in comments; did anybody have a chance to record it? The MLB radio repeat feed wasn't working for me this morning) - The Master may be showing his age. And today - with the jubilation of an opening day victory and a Redsock pineapple colonoscopy - while we're celebrating, the Yankiverse might ponder the reality that calling 162 games, without missing one pitch, is a hell of a lot to ask of someone older than White-Out.
Well put El Duque!
ReplyDeleteYou would have thought that he would have tried this on Suzyn first. I'm sure she would have said "Oh my goodness gracious John, that's terrible! No one is going to get that." But that is like talking to your 80-year old Dad whose faculties have partially left him...he's not going to hear it. John went with it...
Perhaps he took advice from the Pork Store owner across the street where he buys his proschute.
ReplyDelete
ReplyDeleteAll things considered:
- The Yankees had an exhilirating Opening Day victory yesterday.
- The Red Sox blew a 4-run lead in the 8th. Their fans are in anguish.
- A Master of his craft blew it a few months shy of his 80th Birthday. He's an optimist
and a near-tireless worker, however, so I have confidence he'll rebound.
- The phoned-in "Win-warble", however, was a much bigger concern. Maybe he was
realizing how bad the Stanton call was and was dejected.
Time will tell. I am already looking forward to what comes next.
ReplyDeleteWell it was better than the one he was going to go with, "Albondigas no te dije?"
And to answer your question... Yes, you are correct. That's from Spanish ALM Level One Dialogue Two "El hora del almuerzo"
Doug K.
You fools. The win warble was appropriate to the occasion, as always. After six years of losing opening day, John knew opening day was meaningless. He’d been telling us this for six years of opening days. His win warble confirmed the significance of an opening day win (or loss). He cannot make a hypocritical seven second win warble for the least meaningful regular season win! There’s an honor here that I think you are all missing.
ReplyDeleteBJPB, excellent take. Restores my confidence in the master.
ReplyDeleteLBJ also makes an excellent point on perhaps the master already had feedback on his Giancarlo homer call.
Let's hope he takes it to heart and ups his game to the usual standards today. Maybe even a show tune? At the beginning of the season hope always springs eternal.
Sports Center had a different translation, with the Stanton call ending in something like, "sopparlo."
ReplyDeleteBasically, it came down to something like, "There's no stopping him!" But still.
I think Duque has put his finger on it: even the Master has got to use his support team. Why not run it by Suzyn? Or...us?
Meanwhile, the Times was, lusciously, full of baseball today. Most of it, predictably, was about the Mets, but there were two more pieces on the Yanks...and NOTHING on soccer!
That puts the year's total at Soccer 47, Yankees 37—and the Yanks now ahead in the Drive to Win March, 22-20, off a remarkable, 12-1 run. We can do it!!
I'd like to point out that if you listen back to both homeruns, "Parlo" is said the first time through and "marlo" is said the second time. Not his finest performance. And in defense of the Master, the win warble was terrible, but he was alive for most of the game. Perhaps he was just a little tired from the all the excitement.
ReplyDeleteWHY NOT GO ITALIAN?
ReplyDeleteI WAS STUNNED AND CONFUSED AT THE CALL (AS I CAUGHT IT IN LIVE TIME IN MY CAR).
LEAVING ME TO SAY AFTERWARD, "THE MASTER IS A GENIUS!"
IT WAS LIKE THOSE OPEN ENDINGS IN THE MOVIES THESE DAYS.
THE GAME WAS OVER, HE CALLED IT TWICE, AND I STILL DIDN'T KNOW WHAT IT WAS.
GENIUS.
LBJ IS RIGHT, GREAT DAY ALL AROUND YESTERDAY, (EXCEPT FOR THE METS).
Who wouldn't think that a guy named Stanton was Italian? Well, maybe the Dutch UrbanFarmer who knows the languages and naming practices of Europe and the low countries.
ReplyDeleteBut I was doing everything Italian when he came up for his first at bat; I had a Heineken ; I had two hot dogs with red onions and mustard; I had Gentleman Jack Whiskey from the Italian section of Ralph's supermarket; I had ho-hos ( which end in a vowel ); and I smoked some California weed from Sonoma ( again the vowel ending ). So The Master's call was perfect for me.
I just mis-interpreted what he said; e.g." Nancy peed in the parlor." I listened again on the DVD and that is what came through to me, and how far out of it could I have been in the first inning?. "Nancy peed in the parlor." HOW COOL.
A new approach. Historic.
And mixed in with the " Stantonian " thing........ I thought it made a fine cocktail for the old folks home.
The lame win warble, however, is disturbing.
I love it~. Perfect. Hope he mixes in Shamus’ call now and then though.
DeleteI love the call! It's so Sterlingly goofy that it makes me laugh every time I hear it - and I keep playing it over and over. I bookmarked it on my phone, and I'm going to make it my ringtone. It just confirms that there will never be another one like him, and man am I gonna miss him when he's gone.
ReplyDeleteI'm confused. Google translates the line (as Duque has it) as "you can not speak" or "I can not speak of it." That latter is if you combine two of Duque's words into one: non si puede parlo! instead of non si pue de parlo! That one makes more sense if you put aside the very literal translation and actually look at it as "I have no words." In fact, that makes perfect sense, and feels so Master-like I have to think that's the actual translation.
ReplyDeleteKind of genius, actually. As you'd expect from the Master.
The call was actually "non si può stoparlo", which google translates as "you cannot stop it". And it sorta "rhymes" with Giancarlo.
ReplyDeleteGenius, indeed!
John M, Please see Alphonso's post. The correct translation is
ReplyDeleteNancy peed in the parlor.
I love it!
I thought maybe it was "¡Si Se Puede!"
ReplyDeleteJust saw Hicks to DL.
ReplyDeleteSo much for a glut of outfielders...
There is no support team. There is no brain trust. There is nobody to "run it by." The Master has been there so long that there is nobody to rein him in anymore. He's the last vestige of free-range Yankee. Basically, he does what he wants, which is one reason hs is "the Master." When he is gone, his replacement will surely be a pick from on-high, basically a ventriloquist's puppet who parrots whatever the front office says on the teleprompter.
ReplyDeleteI think that call was kind of whacko, but hey, hey's the Master. He over-thought this one, that's for sure. But he deserves a pass and I'm sure he'll think about it and maybe try out some new calls before May is done.
Anonymous, thanks for the actual phrase. As much a"The Cambridge Analytica thing is just the tip of the iceberg," said Mellon, who is typically bearish on big tech. "We're going to see decimation of particularly Facebook and quite right too — it's a trivial use of modern technology and one that's rather sinister."s I respect Alphonso, I hold Nancy in high regard and cannot believe she would do such a thing.
ReplyDeleteI have no idea what happened there.
ReplyDeleteOne of the stories casually mentioned that Sterling has . . . an Italian girlfriend. As far as I am concerned, this explains it all.
ReplyDeleteOk.
ReplyDeleteLet's guess the girlfriend's name!
I predict the ending vowel is "I".
Rufus
How about:
ReplyDelete‘It is high, it is far, it iiiisssss gone! Giancarlo has dropped the Mike! Stanton sends one to Staten Island!’
Shamus,
ReplyDeleteYou have taken the lead.
Let's hope the master is watching the site tonight.
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