Gone. Outta here. Tell it goodbye. See ya.

The most-asked question I received upon telling my fellow newspaper writers about my career switch was, "what's going to be your home run call?" Baseball announcers are supposed to have these great home runs calls.

The great Lon Simmons, who is in the Hall of Fame, would say, "you can tell it goodbye!"

Duane Kuiper of the Giants is famed for saying, "it is high ... it is deep ... it is outtttaaa here!" Except you need that in caps with a lot more exclamation points to get the full effect.

I could make a list of more, but why bother when somebody else already did?

My boss happens to hate, "SSSEEYA!" I even had to promise, on the air during his drive-time afternoon talk show, that I would never use that one.

This is my standard response to my home run call: If Bill King didn't need one, I don't need one. Besides, I want to focus on the fundamentals. What's the count? Where are the infielders? Are the shadows a factor? What's the score? I want to crawl before I walk.

I haven't had a ton of practice with home runs. The Nuts hit six in one game back on April 13, but Modesto is third-to-last in longballs. They hit three on Saturday night and I'm feeling pretty good about nailing all three of the calls. Once I figure out how to post sound bytes, I'll add them.

Driving to work at 4 a.m. this morning, I got to thinking more about home run calls. Pretty much all of them are taken. Now, it's pretty much "it's gone!" or "that is outta here!" After that, you risk saying something really stupid in order to be different.

My good friends on the Angels beat entertain themselves during the season by playing something called "the late game." There's an elaborate point sytem, but it basically boils down to the first person to say "late" on a home run. They thought I should use "late" for my home run call. I actually practiced it in the car this morning ... "to the track ... to the wall ... looking up ........... late!"

Didn't work.

The other dumb idea involves a popular baseball phrase these days: "he gone." Although to get the right affect, it's like a hybrid mix of hip hop and country. So I practiced that one too ... "to the track ... to the wall ... looking up ...................... he gone!"

Didn't work either.

I'll stick to fundamentals for now.