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The quants at the Wall Street Journal, continuing their whimsical efforts to reduce the sporting universe to a ranked list, have scientifically determined which of our baseball broadcasters is the chattiest. And, somehow, it isn't Michael Kay.
The writer, David Biderman, subjected himself to every team's home broadcast last Friday, using a tally counter to add up how many words the play-by-play men spoke during the game's first scoreless inning. Vin Scully came in first, at 143.51 words per minute — maybe Jeff Kent was right! — though that's relatively pithy for someone manning the broadcast booth all by his lonesome. The Cardinals' Dan McLaughlin checks in at No. 2, at 109.93 words per minute. Biderman writes:
Mr. McLaughlin drove up his word count with a riff comparing Albert Pujols to Babe Ruth (based on how many extra-base-hits each player had in his first 500 at-bats), as well as expressing the opinion that Chris Duncan, a former Cardinal, was cut too quickly by the Boston Red Sox.
The Nationals' Bob Carpenter (102.33), the Reds' George Grande (102.06) and the Diamondbacks' Daron Sutton (100.36) round out the top five, well ahead of yammering blowhard Michael Kay, who metes out his pomposities at 73.4 words per minute. Ken Harrelson of the White Sox is a few notches beneath him, at 70.98 words per, which is actually impressive when you consider that those words comprise nothing but "he" and "gone." In last is the Giants' Duane Kuiper, who snuck in 55.44 per minute after someone woke him from his nap.
Meet Baseball's Chattiest TV Announcers [Wall Street Journal]
Send an email to Tommy Craggs, the author of this post, at craggs@deadspin.com.
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