Longtime Play-by-Play Man Dick Stockton Retires

He’s broadcast some of the greatest sports moments of all-time, but now he’s decided it’s time to call it quits.

Dick Stockton, the legendary play-by-play man known for broadcasting all major sports over his 55-year career, is retiring.

“I just think it is time,” Stockton told the New York Post.

Stockton is parting on his own terms and a time of his choosing. As Fox Sports CEO Eric Shanks explains, Stockton was welcome to stay on at Fox as long as he pleased.

“I always said that, ‘Dick Stockton could do games here as long as he possibly wanted to do games here,’” Shanks told the Post. “I will take Dick Stockton, on his worst day rolling out of bed, over almost any other play-by-play guy’s best day. When he called me [about retiring], I was upset. I was emotional. I really didn’t think he would call it right now. I’m sad.”

Stockton considers his top moment in broadcasting to be his call of Carlton Fisk’s home run in Game 6 of the 1975 World Series.

Stockton said at the time: “There it goes! A long drive! If it stays fair … Home run!”

After a long pause, Stockton said, “We will have a seventh game in this 1975 World Series!”

Not one of the more glamorous calls in history, but an instinctive spur-of-the-moment call that seemed right.

“It is strictly instinctive, at that time,” Stockton said. “If I had said that ball was foul and it was a home run, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.

“Nothing has ever exceeded that one in my book [for me].”