It’s going to be weird not having longtime Toronto Blue Jays color analyst Buck Martinez in my life this summer. I don’t remember life without Buck, who announced his retirement this winter.

A baseball commentator becomes part of your family over time. You share your home with them every night, often talking about the game’s insignificant details. Or, as Andrew Forbes says in his brilliant essay collection The Utility of Boredom: 

This is where good radio announcers truly shine: filling the space … It’s for this reason too that baseball became a game of such minute statistical detail: that folks at microphones should have something to say when there was nothing to discuss and nothing happening on the field.

Talking about nothing is the ultimate skill in baseball. Buck has been my commentator of nothing. It’s not that Buck’s words didn’t have meaning. Rather, he says so much that it all blends together in the rhythms of my household right along with me begging my 4- and 2-year-olds to brush their teeth every night. I don’t even hear myself saying it anymore, like I can’t specifically recall Buck calling a double in the gap or a stolen base. 

But I wanted to go deeper into Buck’s excellence so I went back and watched the seminal calls of his career and listened to what MLB deemed to be Buck’s greatest moments. Was Buck a truly special storyteller or was he just my storyteller? 

In addition to filling empty space, a baseball commentator’s main role is myth-building and Buck was the best at it. 

The Blue Jays were up 5-0 in Game 2 of the 2025 American League Championship Series versus the New York Yankees when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. came up to bat with the bases loaded. Guerrero Jr. made it 9-0 and Buck went to work: 

The Yankees bring out the best in Vladdy Guerrero Jr. Six hits in the first two games of this series. He rises to the occasion when he sees the pinstripes. Growing up as a kid, obviously in a baseball family, he always noticed the Yankees. And what a swing and he can admire it. A little bat flip and a casual trip around the bases. Go ahead, Vladdy. Do it.

That’s an entire baseball life summarized in one swing. It’s Guerrero Jr.’s childhood, rivalry with the Yankees, and dominance precisely described in a few sentences. I can only dream of that type of precision in my own writing.  

Once the myth was built, Buck was exceptional at utilizing repetition to cement a legacy. Guerrero Jr. made many exceptional defensive plays in the 2025 playoffs but none bigger than starting a double-play against the Mariners and catching a runner at third in Game 3 versus the Dodgers. 

In Game 6 of the American League Championship Series against the Mariners: 

Nobody is better throwing the ball at first base than Vladdy Guerrero Jr. He gets it to Jimenez and Yesavage is there in plenty of time. What a double play.

In Game 3 of the World Series against the Dodgers:

There’s nobody in baseball that makes the throw across the diamond as well as Vladdy Guerrero Jr. … And look at Vladdy comes off the bag, recognizes got a shot at third base and Ernie Clement is there to put the tag on Hernandez. Again, another look and Vladdy made a quick decision. The throw was not going to get anybody at first. He is out.

Buck repeated the phrasing of “nobody” to tie together these exceptional plays. He’s anchoring Vladdy’s overall defensive excellence in our brain by making us hear it with the same syntax over and over again. If only I had these brilliant words to make my kids brush their teeth. 

As always, I try to apply this in my own writing. Repetition is a valuable tool that the writer can use as well. In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez first builds the myth in the opening sentence of the novel: 

On the day they were going to kill him, Santiago Nasar got up at five-thirty in the morning to wait for the boat the bishop was coming on.

This is the myth. It’s early morning and the bishop is coming. There’s a murder! But what cements the myth is repeating the murder throughout novel. 

On pages 3 and 8, Marquez says: “On the day they were going to kill him …” Then: “Many of those who were on the docks knew they were going to kill Santiago Nasar” (p.19). Also, “… while the Vicario twins were waiting for Santiago Nasar to kill him” (p.66). 

Then my personal favorite: 

They’ve killed Santiago Nasar!

And I haven’t even included all the sentences that reinforce Santiago’s death. The book is annoyingly repetitive at times. That’s the strategy, to constantly re-focus the reader’s gaze to what the writer wants them to see. Santiago has been murdered and no ball is getting past Guerrero Jr. If you want the reader to believe it, a writer has to say it over and over again until it becomes part of your rhythmic reading experience, or until the myth becomes an assumed fact.

I’m going to miss you, Buck!

Upcoming Classes and Presentations

Below is an evolving list of classes and presentations that I’ll be engaged with in the coming months: 

Intermedia Short Story Workshop (8 weeks): March 23 – May 11, 2026. 
Let’s talk about short stories together! 

Book Celebration for HANDS: 6:30-7:30 p.m., May 8, 2026 
Pre-order Hands on Bookshop or Amazon. Or better yet, request it from your local bookstore or library!