I remember his calls of those early 90s Niners-Cowboys like they were yesterday. EPIC!
1994:
1992:
For once I agree with wingnut Dan McLaughlin
RIP Pat Summerall. Great voice, great chemistry with Madden. And always insisted on pausing for the comma in “Murder, She Wrote.”
— Dan McLaughlin (@baseballcrank) April 16, 2013
Steeplejack (tablet)
I’m so old I remember him as a player! RIP, Pat.
Kylroy
And yet Madden is still with us. There’s no justice in the world.
Mr Stagger Lee
Pat Summerall one of the best sports voices who wasn’t annoying. Other sports figures who passed away this month, boxer Carl “The Truth” Williams, football coaches Chuck Fairbanks and Jack Pardee. RIP to all of them.
PeakVT
RIP. I don’t watch much sports anymore, but I always enjoyed the Summerall-Madden team back in the day.
Just Some Fuckhead
Sad
Violet
@PeakVT: Yeah, they were a good team. RIP.
Trollhattan
Boy, football was fun back then. And yeah, Summerall was a pro’s pro. Good times; thanks Pat.
Death Panel Truck
January 5, 1992, when the Detroit Lions slaughtered the Cowboys 38-6 in the 1991 NFC Divisional Playoff.
“Six Cowboys missed him!”
kindness
Go Niners! Sure hope those Niners were less homophobic but don’t matter. Niners Dude!
eclare
And Brent Musburger is still with us.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@eclare: That’s the horrible part, isn’t it?
c u n d gulag
One of the very best Football voices, he was also a great tennis and golf announcer.
And, in his time, a GREAT party animal in his own right!!!
And, a pal of the great Mickey Mantly, through the years.
And he helped Mickey get, and stay sober, at towards the end of his life.
R.I.P. Pat.
A lot of us’ll miss ya!!!
eclare
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Ain’t it the truth! I’m a college fan, and I never thought two entire decades out of school I would still have to put up with him.
p.a.
Really top notch play-by-play man. Let the game shape his narrative, and never seemed to feel he was the focus of action. Only critique, maybe he could have tried to rein in Madden some, but that would have been out of character. Remember him and Tom Brookshire?
LanceThruster
That makes me think of a song from a Betty Hutton musical theater show I saw the other night –
Finally found a fella
Almost completely divine
But his vocabulary
Is killing this romance of mine
We get into an intimate situation
And then begins this character’s conversation
He says, murder, he says
Every time we kiss
He says, murder, he says
At a time like this
He says, murder, he says
Is that the language of love?
Jim C
I always loved his promos when he followed the NFL over to Fox:
“Stayed tuned for House … O’ .. Buggin’!”
He was on another planet, and he didn’t really know what to make of it.
RIP
raven
Man, that late afternoon NFC game. I can hear him now.
piratedan
TY Pat for setting the standard that few have matched. I loved how he let the game speak for himself, nowadays it’s all about “the narrative”, even when the events on the field don’t match the anticipated expectations.
Lurking Canadian
I remember a great article in Sports Illustrated. The title was something like, “Who are the best broadcasters in pro football?”
The article began something like, “Okay, obviously there’s no point doing this, because everybody knows Madden and Summerall are the best. So we’re going to decide who is second…”
RIP
gene108
Him and Keith Jackson were the two best football announcers.
Did Pat get in the HoF as an announcer?
Wally Ballou
Summerall calling the McEnroe-Borg final in the 1980 US Open:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_oxOHvjAjzw
ranchandsyrup
Summerall got Mickey Mantle to go to Betty Ford. That was no easy task.
JWL
No announcer could better describe a pivotal point in a football game by dropping his voice an octave, and, by doing so, sound like the voice God narrating Armageddon– all without sounding corny, at all. The man was brilliant at his job. RIP, Mr. Summerall, and thanks for the memories.
Schlemizel
@Kylroy:
exactly!
He was good with Gibbons & great with Brookshier but Madden made everything worse.
I miss the old days with Jack Buck, Ray Scott and not knowing that football kills young men for my entertainment
JWL
@Schlemizel: Let me share a memory about Summerall and Brookshier that lends perspective as to why the latter lost his job with the former.
During a broadcast featuring the very early, golden era 49ers, the camera panned to the lovely Jenifer Montana. Had T.B. said it over drinks the night before, it would have been an innocuous remark. But he didn’t. He said to his drinking buddy Pat, during a nationally televised broadcast. He asked his partner, in an offhand fashion, “She’s Joe’s third wife, isn’t she”? Which, indeed, she was. To this day, I picture Summerall having looked his pal in the face, with a “you just committed career suicide” look on his face. Be that as it may, Summerall paused a full 3 or 4 seconds before responding, “I wouldn’t know”. Which, of course, he certainly did. But he handled his buddy’s fuck-up as adroitly as was possible. The next season Brookshier was out, and Madden was in.
Heliopause
Do I dare? Summerall sounded good, it was nice that he kept a low profile and had the sonorous voice, but half the time he had no idea what he was talking about. It’s disconcerting when the play-by-play guy can’t keep track of down and distance, player names, and so forth. He got away with it because people were paying attention to Madden’s schtick rather than him.
JWL
@Heliopause: Ah, you’re daft. Summerall was the gold standard of broadcasters.
Wally Ballou
@Heliopause: This was probably true of Fox-era Summerall, but CBS-era Summerall was as sharp a play-by-play technician as there ever was.
angler
Brookie, Tom Brookshire, was Summerall’s partner for a long time. As JWL’s story indicates, you got the sense they partied hard on game weekends.
LosGatosCA
Brookshier, Gowdy, Meredith, Gifford, Madden, even Summerall – bad, indifferent, average, or great they all seem to stay too long.
By the end they are either making obvious errors and/or just phoning it in. That’s too bad, because in Summerall’s case he was the perfect play by play guy at his peak.
Very, very easy to listen to, knew his role, never bigger than the event, content to let the talent be the show and very hard working clearly as well.
I always enjoyed Brookshier sharing how his Eagles stole the championship from a much better Green Bay team back in the Flintstone era.
Unsympathetic
Nothing’s wrong with either of those teams that Leon Sandcastle couldn’t fix.
Paul in KY
@LosGatosCA: I guess in their defense, they were probably getting dumptrucks full of money & it is hard to turn that down.