America’s pastime is not a sport that gives the viewing audience second-to-second action. It’s a beautiful game that’s gifted us with some great baseball movies, to be sure, but God bless, those games can be long and slow. So just as the players hone their skills on the diamond, the play-by-play announcers work to master the art of finding things to talk about between pitches. Often the topic of conversation in the booth is as entertaining as the game action, and that was definitely the case on August 17 when San Francisco Giants announcer Dave Flemming took a good chunk of time in the fourth inning to explain the game of Wordle to Jon Miller.
Wordle took the world by storm late in 2021, and it’s hard at this point to think that there are many people who aren’t familiar with the basic concept of the daily online word game, even if they don’t partake. Jon Miller must have missed the memo (and all the people sharing their results to Twitter), but Dave Flemming had his back, giving a delightfully quaint breakdown of the puzzle. Check out the must-see highlights below:
Dave Flemming spent an entire half inning explaining Wordle to Jon Miller.Here are the highlights: pic.twitter.com/B4jtI33NWtAugust 18, 2022
While keeping the conversation going during a baseball game is necessary to avoid dead air during lulls in the action, Dave Flemming seemed to forget about priority No. 1 and even admitted at one point that, “I should actually call the game.”
The pair even had others joining in the conversation, as a crew member was quick to correct the announcer-turned-Wordle professor’s assertion that there was no time limit, causing Dave Flemming to clarify that a new puzzle comes each day, whether you’ve completed the game or not.
- Jon Miller: Oh, so now it’s late in the day. I might only have four hours.
- Dave Flemming: Yeah, you’re running out of time.
They even apparently received text messages from friends warning them not to spoil the day’s word for them or other listeners who hadn’t played yet.
The Giants’ broadcast booth is hardly the first party to get caught up in the game of Wordle, which was created by Josh Wardle and is now owned by The New York Times (facts that you’d definitely know if you’d been listening to the Giants-Diamondbacks broadcast, because, yes, of course they discussed that too). Dame Helen Mirren admitted to having an addiction to Wordle, and apparently she’s pretty good at it too, boasting that she only uses three of the six attempts to guess the day’s word.
The popularity of the game has spawned a number of offshoots, including Framed, which is like Wordle for movie-lovers; Heardle for music lovers; and my personal favorite, Quordle, in which you solve four words simultaneously. Do you think we can get play-by-play of Jon Miller’s first Quordle?
If you’re looking to celebrate one of America’s favorite sports, check out some of the best sports movies and how to watch them — after you’ve completed your daily Wordle, of course. For some TV options, check out our 2022 premiere schedule and 2022 Netflix premieres.
