"Do you believe in miracles? Yes!"

—Al Michaels, the Miracle on Ice, 1980

You may not know a single sports announcer's name, but if you've ever watched a game on TV or listened to one on the radio, you've certainly heard their calls.

"I don't believe what I just saw!"

—Jack Buck after a broken, barely ambulatory Kirk Gibson hit a bottom of the 9th home run off ace reliever Dennis Eckersley to win Game 1 of the 1988 World Series

Sports unite people, people who would normally never talk to each other, maybe never even see each other. An upset, an underdog, a dominant champion—the story lines can be new or heard a hundred times before, it doesn't really matter. What matters is the moment.

"In a year that has been so improbable, the impossible has happened!"

—Vin Scully on the same Kirk Gibson home run

The moment when the ball falls through the net or drops into the hole. When it sails over the outfield wall or rolls through the infielder's legs. The moment when the pigskin flies through the uprights straight and true or when the once proud fighter doesn't come out of his corner for the next round.

"Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier! Down goes Frazier!"

— Howard Cosell announcing George Foreman's incredible upset over 29-0 Joe Frazier, 1973

Sportscasters complete the moments. Their words help sear them into our memories so deeply they become as integral a part of our past as if we had been in the game ourselves. Now, a case could be made that their job is to make the art of tailcoat riding seem like a legitimate profession. 

Think about it: They pose as experts in whatever sport they’re announcing (some announce several—are they really experts in all of them?), they have direct access to the players and coaches, depend on them for their livelihood, yet judge them and their game time decisions while risking nothing themselves.

But they complete the moment all the same. Sure, without Jack Buck the St. Louis Cardinals were still the 1982 World Series champs, but go find the clip on YouTube and see how much sweeter it was, when Bruce Sutter threw that final strike, to hear Buck shouting, "Swing and a miss! And that's a winner! That's a winner!"

The job of sports announcer was created in the early days of radio and was one of the reasons radios were soon fixtures of the American home. TV hadn't been invented yet and folks got all their information from newspapers. It started with baseball, of course. 

A fellow by the name of Harold Arlin, in the first ever sports broadcast, called a game between the Pittsburgh Pirates and the Philadelphia Phillies. He did the first football game, too, later that same year. Soon radios were absolutely everywhere, the smartphones of their day.  

Eventually, with so many radios out there, people started coming up with other programming to cash in. In a way, the sportscaster helped usher in an entire information medium. This eventually lead to the unfortunate 1938 incident where a radio adaptation of H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds, presented as a series of bulletins, caused widespread panic because people believed they were listening to the announcement of an actual alien invasion of Earth. 

 We are not making this up. 

 Through this, broadcasters discovered they had the power to needlessly cause confusion and fear. This knowledge continues to inspire the media today.

Typically there are two announcers in a broadcast. One is called the Play-By-Play announcer and is generally in charge. He or she explains to the listeners what's going on during the game because, being on the other side of a radio, they can't see it. No doubt you're thinking, "Okay, that makes sense, but what about televised games? Why do I need an overpaid talking head to tell me what I can see just fine for myself?"  

If that's your opinion, all we can say is that it's a darn good thing we have the play-by-play guys. Without them you might watch, say, a golf tournament, and not grasp the minute subtleties only a trained sportscaster can verbalize.

"Tiger is on the 7th fairway now, Steve. Or possibly the 12th. I kind of dozed off for a while there. It appears he's about 170 yards from the pin, which means he'll use one of his clubs, probably an iron, to get it onto the green. It looks like he’s grabbed a 9-iron. Maybe an 8? No, looks like a 9. It's hard to tell. Do they make 8 and a halfs, Steve?"

The other talking head is the Color Commentator (source). His job is to fill in the silence when the Play-By-Play announcer isn't talking with what the networks would probably call "witty, edifying banter," only because it would not be a shrewd marketing move to call it "inane babble that is no more than 60% relevant to the game currently underway." 

Consider this gem from NBA Color Commentator Bill Walton: "John Stockton is one of the true marvels, not just of basketball, or in America, but in the history of Western Civilization!"  Bravo, Bill.

Anyway, despite all that, the sports announcer actually illustrates deep truths about the human psyche. Think about it: What happens to the average person who, while watching their favorite team, thinks a referee has made a mistake? Do they say, "Huh. That ref is clearly in error but I suppose his job is much harder than it looks and I should keep in mind an integral part of sports is dealing with ambiguous officiating."  

Or, instead, do they suddenly fly into a rage, and throw their hands up in the air? Why do they do this? The dilemma is, even though they aren't remotely involved with the game, they deeply care about it. Sportscasters are the epitome of this derangement, and earn their living from it. 

Sportscasters cash in on this need to be involved without actually doing anything. As the saying goes, those who can't do, teach, and apparently those who can't do or teach, talk. But the moments, oh, the moments. Some of them do stay with you forever.

"Go crazy, folks! Go crazy!"  Jack Buck announcing a stunning bottom of the 9th home run from unlikely offensive hero Ozzie Smith to send the St. Louis Cardinals to the 1985 World Series

• More