Chris Berman’s Home Run Derby ‘back-back-back’ count surprisingly low

We watched the Home Run Derby last night pretty attentively. We watched, and we waited for Chris Berman to strike down on us with his “back, back, back’s” without mercy.

Guess what? Something is rotten in Denmark. Chris Berman has been reading the blogs. It’s obvious at least to me that he toned it down this year. One commenter in our liveblog mentioned that Berman was old school, and saving his trademark patented finishing verbal maneuver for only the true bombs. That might hold water, but it was too toned down.

By our count, and we admit to doing a fair amount of flipping as the night went on; Berman only did about 7 or 8 back, back, back’s. Rather than on every other home run like in the past. He really, truly seemed to be trying to hold back and when he did do it, it was simply by habit or accident.

He did however unleash some of the following gems:

“This one’s a sky-scraper” (actually said this on two different occasions)

“This one is out to the space station, isn’t it?”

“That was a fair catch” (after Prince Fielder hit a high drive that just got over in RF)

“In that swing off, Prince was king”

“Splish splash and we’re taking a bath” (easily the Berman-ism of the night, after a HR landed in the pool)

If you were turning in for Berman last night; and we know that no one out there actually was, you weren’t completely let down. But something from the past was missing. Berman has been reading what’s out there about his performance in past home run derby’s and due to that he toned it down with his trademark line. His hair was about as thin and bad as ever, though.