The Historic Present: Grammar of Sportscasting

The crowd goes silent. The pitcher winds up. He throws. The batter swings—it’s a high fly ball to deep left field! Going, going… gone!

If you have ever listened to a radio broadcast of a baseball game or watched the World Cup on television, the sentences above likely sound perfectly natural to you. However, if you stop to analyze them from a strictly grammatical standpoint, something strange is happening.

By the time the announcer says “the pitcher winds up”, the pitcher has already finished winding up. When the announcer says “he throws”, the ball is arguably already in the catcher’s mitt. The event has technically concluded before the description is complete. Logic dictates we should use the past tense: “The pitcher wound up. He threw. The batter swung.”

Yet, if a sportscaster spoke that way, they would sound detached, bored, and strangely out of sync. This linguistic phenomenon is known as the Historic Present (or Praesens Historicum), and it is one of the most fascinating tools in the English speaker’s arsenal. From the commentary booth to the stand-up comedy stage, let’s explore why we use the present tense to describe the past.

The Paradox of “Now”

In standard English grammar curricula, we are taught a linear view of time. The past happened yesterday, the future happens tomorrow, and the present happens now. But linguistics shows us that “tense” and “time” are not always the same thing.

The Historic Present is a stylistic device where a narrator uses the present tense to recount events that happened in the past. It creates a linguistic paradox: the grammatical form is “now”, but the semantic meaning is “then.”

We don’t just hear this in sports. Consider how people tell jokes or relate personal anecdotes at a party:

• Past Tense: “So, I walked into the coffee shop, and I saw my boss.”
• Historic Present: “So, I walk into the coffee shop, right? And I see my boss.”

The second option feels more dynamic. It invites the listener into the story, asking them to visualize the events as they unfold, rather than simply reviewing a report of what already occurred.

The Sportscaster’s Syntax: A Tale of Two Tenses

Broadcasting offers the most fertile ground for studying this phenomenon because of the unique relationship between the Play-by-Play Announcer and the Color Commentator. Their roles are defined not just by what they say, but by the grammar they use.

1. Play-by-Play: The Immediate Present

The Play-by-Play announcer’s job is to keep up with the action. They almost exclusively use the simple present tense (“Messi passes the ball”) rather than the present continuous (“Messi is passing the ball”).

Linguists have noted that the simple present allows for rapid-fire delivery. “He shoots, he scores!” is a punchy, two-beat rhythm. “He is shooting, he is scoring!” is clunky and slow. By the time you finish the sentence, the moment is gone. In this context, the Historic Present mimics the speed of the game itself.

2. Color Commentary: The Reflective Past

Conversely, the Color Commentator usually speaks during pauses in play. Their job is analysis. Notice how the tense shifts immediately when the second voice enters the broadcast:

• Play-by-Play (Present): “James catches, turns, and fires a three!”
• Color Commentator (Past): “You know, he saw the defense sagging off him there. He recognized the mismatch and took advantage of it.”

This interplay creates a subconscious timeline for the viewer. The present tense signals “action is happening”, while the past tense signals “action is being reviewed.”

The Vividness Hypothesis

Why does our brain prefer the present tense for storytelling? Linguists refer to this as the Vividness Hypothesis. The theory suggests that using the present tense reduces the psychological distance between the event and the listener.

When you hear “The door opens”, your brain processes the image as a current sensory input. When you hear “The door opened”, your brain processes it as memory retrieval. The Historic Present tricks the brain into moving from the role of a passive historian to an active witness.

This is famously used in literature to heighten tension. In Charles Dickens’ Bleak House, the narrative shifts into the present tense to describe the chaotic, foggy streets of London, immersing the reader in the gloom. In modern thrillers, the present tense suggests that the protagonist is in immediate danger—we don’t know if they survive because the story is happening now.

It’s Not Just English

While English speakers might take “Two guys walk into a bar…” for granted, this grammatical feature appears in various languages, though the rules of application differ.

• Latin: The term Praesens Historicum comes from Latin grammar. Caesar’s Gallic Wars frequently uses the present tense to describe past military maneuvers to make the battles feel urgent.
• French: The présent de narration functions similarly to English, often used in journalism and literature to make a sequence of past events feel lively.

However, for language learners, this can be incredibly confusing. A student learning English might be corrected for saying “Yesterday I go to the store”, only to hear a native speaker say “So yesterday, I go to the store…” five minutes later. The key difference is intent. The learner makes a mistake of conjugation; the native speaker makes a choice of style.

When to Use the Historic Present

If you are a writer, a public speaker, or a language learner looking to master advanced nuance, when should you deploy the Historic Present? The secret is in the “switch.”

Sociolinguist William Labov argued that the Historic Present is most effective at the climax of a narrative. If you tell an entire twenty-minute story in the present tense, it can become exhausting for the listener. The most engaging storytellers start in the past tense to set the scene, and switch to the present tense when the trouble starts.

Example:
“I was walking down the street, and it was a Tuesday. I wanted to get a coffee. Suddenly, this car swerves onto the sidewalk! I jump out of the way and drop my phone.”

The shift from “was walking” (past) to “swerves” (present) acts as a red flag to the listener. It screams: Pay attention! This is the important part!

Conclusion: Grammar as a Time Machine

The grammar of sportscasting reveals that human language is not strictly bound by the ticking of a clock. We have the ability to manipulate time through syntax. We can bring a goal scored in 1999 into the immediate present, or push a thought we had five seconds ago into the distant past.

So, the next time you hear “He shoots, he scores!” remember that you aren’t just hearing a description of a game. You are witnessing a complex linguistic maneuver designed to make your heart beat just a little bit faster. The ball may have already gone through the hoop, but in the grammar of the broadcast, it is flying through the air forever.