Tonight I caught a recap of the Kirk Gibson home run in the 1988 World Series. The home run is obviously a great moment, but even better is sportscaster Vin Scully's narrative. Scully is the best baseball voice I have ever heard. I used to watch the NBC "Game of the Week," no matter who was playing, just to hear Scully's play-by-play. His delivery is eerily even, such that a merely subtle emphasis signals an important moment. His enunciation is nearly perfect, and of course his descriptive vocabulary is second to none. "Be-hiiind the bag!" (1986) perfectly captured the shock of that moment as only Scully could do it; "...and the Mets win!" featured a complex mixture of raspiness and clarity that you just can't teach or calculate. I know Scully's career extends far before when I first started watching baseball in the early 1980s, and I'm sure there are hundreds of other perfectly delivered narratives.

What about play-by-play narrators other sports?

For football, my vote goes to Dick Stockton, a blue chip voice of the NFL for as long as I can remember. You can trust his experience, and his delivery, like Scully's, is even--so when he elevates his tone a level, you know the moment deserves it. Stockton does other sports also; somehow he seems to match best with football.

For hockey, Mike Emrick is a vocal magician. As a puck races around the ice, Emrick somehow keeps his narrative stream at a perfectly calibrated pace. When the stakes rise, the overall level of Emrick's tone does also, but it never ventures beyond sustainability until a goal is scored (or a game is won).

For basketball, Marv Albert stands above everyone else in his ability to combine analysis, humor, and sarcasm with nearly perfect control of tone. Unfortunately, thanks to Cablevision, Knicks fans will have to do without Marv this year.