How MLB Umpires Learned to Explain Replays to Crowds

“There are certain times I’ll click into the stadium and say, ‘Cincinnati is challenging the out call,’ and all you hear is the echo, like there’s a malfunction. You’re hearing like a screeching noise,” Carlson said. But, he added, “what they hear on TV and what they’re hearing in the broadcast booth is not that.”

And those people listening on TV or the radio? They have plenty of thoughts, too.

“My market research consists of my father, and my father will critique my announcements,” said Iassogna, whose father spent years officiating high school football. “He likes the explanations. He’s very critical of how I present the explanations.”

The announcements have changed relatively little for players and managers, who were often able to elicit more details. That has not always stopped them from scouting the newly observable toastmaster-like talents of the umpire corps.

“They all seem like they’d rather not be doing it,” said Aaron Loup, a reliever for the Los Angeles Angels who said he had noticed small variations in how umpires expressed themselves. “I have to agree with them: I’d rather not be doing it myself.”

The umpires figure that the system will stick around.

“It’s an accepted part of the routine, it’s an accepted part of the game, and as the time has gone on, we’re announcing better,” Carlson said. “It’s obviously here to stay.”

Then, not long before he donned the microphone that could blast his voice far from the banks of the Ohio River, he chuckled nervously.

Scott Miller contributed reporting from Anaheim, Calif.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/12/sports/baseball/mlb-umpire-replay-announcements.html