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THE MAG.COM PRESENTS:
ALL WORLD POWER RANKINGS

by Ted Bauer

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"Is that Bobby down there?" "Oh God, we just trampled one of the baseball ops interns!"

WHEN IT COMES TO THE BEST RADIO CALLS EVER, CAN THE SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD POSSIBLY BE TOPPED?

Radio Heard Here just released a sweeping survey on Americans' favorite sports to listen to on the radio; while we kinda thought radio might be a dying medium (we love Mike and Mike, though!), ¾ of Americans actually have a clear favorite on the dial. Football wins out at 30 percent, followed by baseball (a sport that "grew up" in some respects with radio) at 25 percent. All this got us nostalgic, and our boss is old (his words, not ours), so we decided to rank some of the best radio calls of all-time. One caveat to this list: it's much cooler if we provide you with the links to said calls and out of the thousands of iconic moments in sports history, most do not have the radio call somewhere on the Interwebs. Still, it's a fairly entertaining list.

TOP 5
RANK (YESTERDAY) WHAT WHY
1 (4) SHOT HEARD ROUND THE WORLD (OCTOBER 1951) Listen to it here and read the broadcaster breakdown here. The one you're probably most familiar with is Russ Hodges' call, done on WMCA Radio.
2 (81) APPALACHIAN STATE OVER MICHIGAN (SEPTEMBER 2007) Just listen to it. If that isn't sheer joy, what is?
3 (167) JACK BUCK ON CBS RADIO CALLING KIRK GIBSON'S HR (OCTOBER 1988) Again, take a listen. The end of it is amazing: "I don't believe what I just saw!" None of us did.
4 (23) WILT CHAMBERLAIN'S 100 POINT GAME (MARCH 1962) Here it is. Nothing like this will ever happen again. Best part of the call itself: early on it's very low-key and as it progresses, the guys in the radio booth realize Chamberlain is in the 90s and start to lose it a little. We love it when the passion of sports overwhelms commentators. Phrased another way, we love Gus Johnson.
5 (277) JOE CARTER WORLD SERIES WINNING HR (OCTOBER 1993) Click here for it. Great call by Tom Cheek, a long-time Blue Jays radio guy. The best part? "Touch 'em all, Joe, you'll never hit a bigger one than this!" It's on MLB promos all the time.

HONORABLE MENTION
RANK (YESTERDAY) WHAT WHY
6 (383) THE MIRACLE ON ICE, RADIO STYLE (FEBRUARY 1980) Think the only call of this is Al Michaels? It might be the most iconic one, sure; but we got the radio one for you too. Clip's a little long, and the guy is no Michaels (who is!?!), but it's a good treatment of one of the most iconic moments in sports history.
24 (14) 1991 WORLD SERIES, GAME 7 (OCTOBER 1991) 19. 1991 World Series, Game 7 (October 1991) Voted by several experts (including us!) as among the best World Series ever, the '91 Series went to 10 innings in Game 7. Here's the call of the end. As a side note, that site has about 15 calls aggregated together and it's simply awesome.

RISING AND FALLING
MOVEMENT WHAT
"HOLDS IT! HOLDS IT! HOLDS IT!" (Classic Simpsons moment lampooning cultural differences)
THE 2004 RED SOX RADIO CALL (Why falling? They'll win a few more. Plus, we don't have audio of it, just the text from Castiglione.)


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