I can still remember the conversation like it was yesterday. Back in the mid 90s I was broadcasting for the Los Angeles Angels (Anaheim Angels at that time) on radio. I was in the middle of my third year in a major league booth and I was asked out to lunch by the team’s Broadcasting Manager. He was new to the club and was recently hired.

I assumed the conversation was a get-to-know-you type meeting to discuss the broadcast and to get to know each other a little better. The conversation was basic in nature for the most part, until he mentioned something that he wanted me to try. It seemed that he believed for me to take it to the next level, I needed to come up with a home run call.

“All the great announcers have one,” he said. For me to develop into a great announcer, he believed I needed to create a signature call and make it my own. On the surface he had a point. After all, Harry Caray, Ernie Harwell and Harry Kalas all had distinct home run calls or signature sayings. So did Dave Niehaus and Vin Scully. These are Hall of Fame voices we are talking about.

I only had one problem with the request. Not all home runs are the same. Some are majestic moon shots, some are line drives and some are wall-scrapers that barely get out. Trying to fit every home run into a single mold didn’t make sense to me. I never did like scripted play-by-play. I thought big moments in a game should be organic, not described by some rehearsed phrase written on a piece of paper.

But, I wanted to prove that I was coachable, so I agreed to give it a shot. It didn’t go well. For the next month I tried to concoct some silly saying to attach to every home run I called and it was a miserable failure. It sounded forced and unnatural. It just didn’t work for me. We eventually agreed that I was better off giving each home run call it’s own description. Besides, many of the home run calls were already used by other announcers. I didn’t want to be viewed as someone who was a copycat.

That is not to say that you shouldn’t have a home run call if you feel comfortable doing it. It works for some announcers and not for others. If it feels organic for you, then go for it. If it doesn’t, then don’t feel you need one just because.