Buckley: Thom Brennaman returns to the airwaves after an insult. Are people ready to listen?
When I heard this week that Thom Brennaman had been pulled from the broadcast network to cover football games for The CW, my inbox and eardrums started ringing with questions about what I thought.
My thoughts are this: he should never have been fired in the first place.
We can all agree that Brennaman made a deafeningly inappropriate comment on the evening of August 19, 2020, when the then-television voice of the Cincinnati Reds uttered words that contained an anti-gay slur. This was followed by a pause, followed by, “Reds (are) live, the pregame show hosted by …”
As Brennaman would soon learn, the Reds were already live. What’s not known is how that line began, or who he was speaking to. What matters is that his homophobic slur was delivered into a hot microphone; before the night was over, he told viewers he was retiring from the broadcast and facing an uncertain future. But not before issuing an ill-advised and clumsy apology that, wrapped around his call of a Nick Castellanos home run, has become as infamous as the words that got him in hot water in the first place.
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In this age of social media, dragging texts, and the danger of being reduced to a stumbling block by making a salty comment that will be recorded by the complete stranger standing behind you, we are all susceptible to speaking into hot mics. This is not to excuse, explain, or otherwise examine what Brennaman said that night. It was bad, really bad, and Brennaman deserved to be condemned by people — regardless of their sexual orientation. I happen to be gay, but I’m quoting that here strictly as my own personal station identification, so to speak. Other than that, it doesn’t matter much.
What is happening — or was, in 2020 — is that Brennaman didn’t allow himself to have a candid, public discussion about what he said and what he planned to do to make it right. Instead, he tried to clean things up while announcing the game, then turned the remaining innings over to booth partner Jim Day and headed home.
Brennaman got everything wrong in his apology, starting with that old cliché, “If I offended anyone out there…” instead of immediately acknowledging that he offended a whole lot of people who just wanted to sit back and watch a game. It’s worth noting that this came during MLB’s stitched-together COVID-19 season, when players were performing to empty stadiums. I don’t know about you, but that 2020 season provided a welcome distraction at a time when so much of our daily lives was on hold.
Brennaman then stated that he is “a man of faith,” which, as I wrote in 2020, had nothing to do with what he was trying to correct.
He also said, “I’m not that person.” Well, no, it was Thom Brennaman, the television voice of the Cincinnati Reds, who made the offensive comment.
Good sportscasters are known for their ability to respond instantly to the events of a game, whether it’s a tricky move, a controversial move, a record-breaking move, or other events that require immediate knowledge of such intangibles as a manager’s strategy, the complexities of the rules of the game, and over a hundred years of baseball history.
I’m not familiar with Brennaman’s broadcasting voice or his ability to deliver a walking tapestry of the game, but he’s been covering the Reds since 1989. He’s been covering network football. He wouldn’t have lasted as long as he did if he couldn’t deliver the goods. It’s just different when you’re trying to explain a terrible rant when your career is hanging by a thread.
I’m so glad that Thom Brennaman is getting a second chance at his TV career, four years after his huge mistake.
He listened and learned a lot, and he contributed to the community in a quiet but powerful way.
Congratulations @ThomBrennamanTV And @TheCWGreat to see.
— Cyd Zeigler (@CydZeigler) July 21, 2024
Have you ever seen that iconic 1939 photo of living members of baseball’s Hall of Fame? If there were a photo of the inaugural class of the Bad Apology Hall of Fame, Thom Brennaman would be sitting front and center, just like Babe Ruth in the 1939 Cooperstown photo.
This may sound terribly pious, but we shout a lot these days without listening much. Instead, we throw people off bridges, figuratively speaking, and then move on to the next person who said something stupid.
What we needed in 2020 was for Brennaman to wait a day, pull himself together, talk to people, and then offer something more substantial than your average damage control. And then it would have been our duty, and this is the hard part, to listenThat all came later, but it was too late.
GO DEEPER
Thom Brennaman Returns to Broadcasting at The CW
When reading colleague Andrew Marchand’s piece for The Athletics As for Brennaman’s revival, what emerges is a soulful, reflective man who has spent more time with his family in recent years … and more time talking to people, too. “What has given him the second chance is the work he has done to reach out to the gay community, both in Cincinnati and nationwide,” Marchand wrote.
“It was mostly about listening to people,” Brennaman told Marchand.
There it is, right there. The listening.
It’s possible I’m traveling in a forgiving group, but in 2020, virtually every person I’ve talked to about this topic, gay and straight, has said to me: A. Brennaman really misbehaved that night, and B. should have given him some time off to save his job.
It’s now 2024, and Brennaman is finally getting a fresh start at The CW. According to Marchand, his first game is between Oregon State and Idaho State on Aug. 31, but the bulk of his workload will be in the ACC.
Let’s watch. Let’s listen to Tom Brennaman. And to each other.
(Photo: Joe Robbins/Getty Images)
