In spite of the horrors complained of, there have been in living memory a few sports announcers worth listening to. There was the egregious Howard Cosell, who was a lawyer at some point, who enlivened football games with a sesquipedalian vocabulary. In Baltimore there was the immortal Charlie Eckmann, a former basketball player and referee, who had an amazing stock of expressions. His favorite was "Call a cab" meaning "leave, quit, retire", as in, "The U of MD told Coach Joe Smith to call a cab today; he was fired for losing 27 games in a row." Naturally, when Charile died, the news announcement started with, "Charlie Eckmann called a cab today for the final time."