During tonight’s Sawks/Tigers game, Tigers announcers Mario Impemba and Rod Allen were discussing the slightly controversial collision at home plate that will likely end Buster Posey’s season. Luckily for us, this allowed them to segue to a clip from Rod’s brief playing career where he absolutely flattens a catcher in Japan. That clip above is entertaining, but mostly it provided a crucial answer to Tigers fans on why exactly Rod was plunked later in that very game causing him to charge the mound thus providing one of the most hilarious baseball clips of all time which you can see below.
Seeing these clips of Rod Allen are somewhat jarring to Tigers fans. Rod Allen in the booth comes across as one of the genuinely nicest guys you’ll ever listen to. For instance, he lovingly calls Mario Impemba (Tigers PBP man) “pahdnuh” (partner) seemingly 10-15 times per game and rarely will send out a twitter message with less than three exclamation marks at the end of it. He has many go-to phrases which he will rehash. Because of that, Rod has a lot of haters that do not appreciate his style. From what I can tell, usually his cornball announcing style is celebrated when the Tigers are playing well and hated on when the team is struggling. Personally, I’ve never really let his style upset me that much. He knows the game and has an engaging personality, but it would be nice if he might expand his vocabulary by about 800%.
For this reason, there has been many attempts to create a definitive Rod Allen drinking game to celebrate each time he says one of his magical phrases such as “slide piece” or “country strong.” In the version I helped create, the absolute pinnacle of the game was the very rare event that they show the famous clip of Rod charging the mound in Japan. So, for alcoholic Tigers fans, tonight was an exciting night.
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