Orioles slugger Mark Trumbo has eight home runs this season. Mid-Atlantic Sports Network play-by-play announcer Gary Thorne has called four of them. Here are the transcripts of his first three:
April 11, against Boston Red Sox: "Trumbo gets it in the air, right-center field. He got a lot of that one. Back near the bullpen, and goodbye! Home run! What a shot. That is 400-plus as Trumbo delivers a homer."
April 12, against Red Sox: "Trumbo got it. Way back, left field. He drove it, and goodbye! Home run! Off the top of the billboard sign at the back of the Green Monster seats and out onto Lansdowne Street. Ho, did he get a hold of that one."
Tuesday, against New York Yankees: "That one is long gone. Way back, left field, and goodbye! Home run! And the Orioles tie it up on a Mark Trumbo No. 7."
Later Tuesday night, as seen above, Thorne makes his descent into madness: "Trumbooo BUMBOOOOO. At the wall, and goodbye! Home run! His second of the ballgame, this one good for two RBIs."
Trumbo. Bumbo. Say it with me now: Trumbo Bumbo. Is this the Orioles' version of "Hakuna matata"? It means no worries for the rest of your games. It's a homer-spree philosophy. Trumbo Bumbo!
I can't rightly say what my favorite part of this call is.
Is it how, for a second there, he sounds like he's about to go full-on Andres Cantor, with "Bumbo" stretching to infinity like "Goal"?
Is it how this might have in fact been an aborted attempt at dropping a "Trumbomb" during the broadcast? If you looked at the letters like a game of Scrabble, there's a lot of overlap, with a couple of blank tiles used at his discretion.
Is it how Jim Palmer lets the call breathe for a second, ostensibly to gather his thoughts but maybe actually to make sure his broadcasting partner hasn't suffered a ministroke?
Is it how the Drunk Gary Thorne Twitter account has been inactive since mid-April, suggesting that man and machine have begun to meld into one?
(It's definitely the last one.)
A baseball announcer, especially one as proud as Thorne, is nothing without his home run signatures. "Goodbye! Home Run!" is not going away, nor should it. It is a wonderful catch-all call. But I beg of Thorne: Make "Trumbo Bumbo" a thing. Wouldn't everyone on the Orioles need a Trumbo Bumbo equivalent, you ask. No. He doesn't need to start being John Sterling.
But Trumbo has only so many home runs left in him this season. The world is a better place when you imagine each punctuated with a Trumbo Bumbo, leaving you to marvel at two things equally full of wonder: the hit itself, and just what in the world Thorne was thinking when he said those two magical words.
Trumbo Bumbo.