What was a rather bland baseball game on Saturday night turned into a lengthy brawl between the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians. And Tom Hamilton, Cleveland’s longtime radio play-by-play man, made a seamless transition from baseball to boxing.
It started with a double from Cleveland’s José Ramírez, which cut the deficit to 5-1. Ramírez slid safely into second and clearly took issue with Chicago shortstop Tim Anderson standing over him and being in no hurry to get out of the way.
When Ramírez got to his feet, he exchanged words with Anderson, which quickly turned into fists flying. Hamilton then became a boxing commentator.
“Now José and Anderson square off. They’re fighting, They’re swinging. “Down goes Anderson. Down goes Anderson.”
After channeling his inner-Howard Cosell (only with talent), Hamilton paused briefly, then recapped the situation.
“Ramírez went in with a head-first slide. José never gets upset about anything. They came up chewing. Anderson squared off. José decked him. It’s a 5-1 Chicago lead. But everybody from the dugouts and the bullpens congregated around second base. You never see José Ramírez get upset like that. And Tim Anderson was on the wrong side of that punch.”
Tom Hamilton's call of the Jose Ramirez-Tim Anderson fight on Cleveland radio is the stuff of legend.
"DOWN GOES ANDERSON! DOWN GOES ANDERSON!" pic.twitter.com/ZXSUW4eE0V
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 6, 2023
The fight continued for several more minutes and resulted in six ejections.
Highlights of this fight will likely be seen for quite some time. And thanks to Hamilton, those highlights will have an awesome soundtrack.
