Thoughts on the Thom Brennaman Situation in Cincinnati
It’s a weird time right now if you are a fan of the Cincinnati Reds. Your team is 10-12 and usually out of the NL Central hunt by now. You have Trevor Bauer being threatened by the MLB to be suspended and such for potentially wearing cleats that say “Free joe Kelly” on them. But if none of that is bad enough, now you have your announcer losing his whole career for five seconds of not having social awareness.
We all know the Thom Brennaman situation by now. He used a homophobic slur before the Reds pregame that got caught on the air. Warning: use of the homophobic slur is evident in this video.
Thom Brennaman (reds play by play announcer) just casually drops a huge homophobic slur live on air without realizing his mic was hot pic.twitter.com/AdnD4HhlgP
— Big Game Bengal (@BengalYouTube) August 20, 2020
Brennaman was removed from the broadcast mid-game and is currently suspended. Now that the dust has settled a bit, here’s a few thoughts.
Why Say it at All?
Was there really a need to say what he said? Obviously in his mind, there was a legitimate reason. My question here is, why? There wasn’t another word you could have used in that situation? Not only that, it seems like Brennaman was so comfortable saying it even off of the airwaves. I don’t know, suspicious to me.
Was the Apology Sincere?
Thom Brennaman’s apology. Comes with the incredibly awkward call of a home run as well.
— Matt Barnes (@Matt_NBC4) August 20, 2020
During the broadcast before he was excused for the night, Brennaman apologized. It was a weird apology when Nick Castellanos hit a homerun in the middle of it all. On the surface, it seems pretty genuine. But then of course, you can speculate by saying “Is he only apologizing because he got caught?”. People are playing both sides of the fence here. Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman talked on First Take and even said he deserves a second chance at broadcasting in the future. I’m not sure many people would agree with that, but it is what it is.
The Reprecussions have Started
Like I mentioned before, Brennaman has been suspended until further notice from the Reds broadcast. But he’s also seeing some bad signs from other sports as well.
FOX Sports has announced that Thom Brennaman will not be part of their NFL broadcasting team this season. Brennaman uttered a homophobic slur during last night's Cincinnati Reds game. "The language used was abhorrent, unacceptable & not representative of the values of FOX Sports"
— NFL Update (@MySportsUpdate) August 20, 2020
So now, Brennaman won’t be broadcasting for FOX Sports during the NFL season. Something tells me this won’t be the last of Brennaman’s punishments for his actions either.
In Conclusion
Do I think Thom Brennaman deserves a second chance? No. Why? Well, because he felt some comfortable to say it off air anyway. I do believe there was some sincerity in his voice with his apology. But after doing this for about three decades now, you have to be smart enough to know what to say and what not to say. Thom Brennaman mentioned in his apology that it could be the last time he puts on a headset. Guess what? I think he’s really onto something there.
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-Al Nahigian (@BigAl2793)
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Feat. Image courtesy of cbssports.com/