MLB 2023 Season

[Cobra Mgr]

More takes across the landscape

[Amazin69]

Thank God (and I'm an atheist) that John Angelos isn't running a church. You literally would not be allowed to hold Easter services.

"What is this 'Christ dies but is resurrected' crap? You're going to talk about Jesus dying? Are you trying to make Him look bad? Get out of here!!"

And forget about "Amazing Grace": "I once was lost, but now am found"…wtf is "was lost"?? We don't need that negativity here! You're suspended!"

Overcoming adversity is literally the heroic journey. The underpinning of every narrative. And I thought I'd already seen censorship run amok. FFS.

I stay out too late. Got nothing in my brain. Well, that's what people say.

"Oh, and there's one other person you've pissed off. His name was Phil."

I mean, come on.

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

Gary Cohen on Brown's suspension.

Yankee broadcast gives their take.

W-S Jason Benetti slick comment

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

More takes across the landscape

I was kinda low-key rooting for the Orioles to win the division and maybe more, but if they don't fix that, they can rot in last place for all I care.

I liked this comment under one of the articles linked:

Holy hell. Who owns the Orioles? Kim Jong Un???

That's more on point than you think.

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

MLB obviously wants its broadcasters to behave like it's a church service.

It strikes me as a (very misguided) attempt to protect the Orioles brand. Many businesses these days seem highly sensitive to anything which reflects negatively on the business.

Such attempts nearly always backfire.

[monkeyman576]

Originally Posted by Le Grande Orange

It strikes me as a (very misguided) attempt to protect the Orioles brand. Many businesses these days seem highly sensitive to anything which reflects negatively on the business.

Such attempts nearly always backfire.

Losing for 40 years doesn't negatively effect the brand?

[Le Grande Orange]

Originally Posted by monkeyman576

Losing for 40 years doesn't negatively effect the brand?

Not as long as no one associated with the business mentions it.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Westheim

I was kinda low-key rooting for the Orioles to win the division and maybe more, but if they don't fix that, they can rot in last place for all I care.

I liked this comment under one of the articles linked:



That's more on point than you think.

Thing is, if this is true & you're Brown, how do you know what to say when you come back? I honestly wouldn't know what I was permitted to say.

[Cobra Mgr]

"Free Kevin Brown" chants in Camden last night.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

"Free Kevin Brown" chants in Camden last night.

https://twitter.com/Ourand_SBJ/statu...80907045412864

As noted, the TBS telecast (with Brian Anderson) hilighted the chants.

Reportedly, the A*stros did as well.

The home telecast, on MASN, ignored them.

Stay classy, John Angelos.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

"Free Kevin Brown" chants in Camden last night.

I honestly don't understand why he was suspended. If there was anything "untoward", and I use that term lightly, it was in the on-screen graphic and whether or not he was told to avoid saying the words that were on the screen.... the words were on the screen for everyone to see. And what did the graphic even say, that the Orioles used to be bad in Tropicana but they've been better this year? Was it the term "tropical depression" (which, if that's so objectionable, it's not like you can't just, like, immediately change that graphic)?

I'm all for announcers getting suspended or canned when they say legitimately terrible things. Like, Thom Brennaman was caught saying stuff he actually thought (abhorrent homophobic stuff, let's be real), issued a hasty half-apology on the air (including the phrase "that's not who I am"; Thom, that was literally your voice saying those words. Were you possessed by a mind flayer?) and the fact that he had to interrupt it to announce the DRIVE INTO DEEP LEFT FIELD BY CASTELLANOS was really the icing on the cake that made it perhaps the greatest announcing moment of all time. For sure, fire that guy and never give him another job. But what was violated with this? Harry Caray famously used to say realistic words about the White Sox and the Cubs all the time and not about past performance either. Dave Niehaus was famously diplomatic about some very awful Mariners teams but even with him the second a guy left the organization he would absolutely lambaste him. It most certainly didn't cross the line into actual offensive speech.

[Cobra Mgr]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

I honestly don't understand why he was suspended............

It's so baffling, that is why I keep posting "if" this is true. Cause it makes zero sense. It makes you want to believe there must be something else behind it. Or if he is really not suspended & taking care of a medical issue & the club is keeping quiet. Having been once married to a woman suffering w/PPD though, I know it is possible for someone to so touchy that they can take any statement and find an insult in it.

[thehef]

Just heard Dodgers' play-by-play man Stephen Nelson sign off with "Free Kevin Brown!!!"

[Déjà Bru]

The amazing thing about Michael Lorenzen's performance is not the no-hitter but that they allowed him to throw 124 pitches to get it.

[Syd Thrift]

Originally Posted by Cobra Mgr

It's so baffling, that is why I keep posting "if" this is true. Cause it makes zero sense. It makes you want to believe there must be something else behind it. Or if he is really not suspended & taking care of a medical issue & the club is keeping quiet. Having been once married to a woman suffering w/PPD though, I know it is possible for someone to so touchy that they can take any statement and find an insult in it.

OK, is it a reference to the mental condition of depression? I'm sliiiightly more sympathetic to that except that:

1. The graphic said "tropical depression", which is not at all related to the mental condition and has been around as a thing for ages. I'd honestly be like 10 times more put out if Brown, for example, called someone "hysterical" because that word at least does have actual charged meaning behind it.

2. The issue is still with the graphic, not with Brown commenting on the graphic. Had Brown extended the metaphor into talk of actual depression, there too I would be a lot, lot, lot more sympathetic to his suspension.

I just want to point out to that this isn't "PC run amok" or whatever phrase jackholes are using nowadays ("cancel culture"?). This is a corporation making a stupid corporate decision for ostensibly corporate reasons. It's also entirely possible that their stupid corporate reasons are in fact not related at all to the subject matter and this was just a lynchpin (like, if he's quietly trying to negotiate a new contract, this would hardly be the first time the capitalist class tried to run some guy's name through the mud in order to decrease his value).

Has Baltimore even released an official statement as to why, exactly, he's been suspended? As you noted, people are saying "oh it's just a coincidental bit of time off for a medical condition of his own", which, if true, is its own can of worms with the way people have responded to this (I'm reminded of the gamerzzzz whining about the supposed backlash against the video game Cuphead for "being too hard"; IMO there were significant criticisms to be made of the source material they used for that game* but at that I don't remember a lot else than 'fortunately all that has been pretty well whitewashed'). If they're more or less lying by keeping their mouths shut, that's kind of bad on the O's part as well.

*The game sourced a couple blatantly racist cartoons from the 1930s that concerned Black caricatures being unable to stay away from gambling, a vice that was shown in the form of animated dice, etc. Again, the actual game does not use the racist caricatures and the general consensus is that it's far enough away from those roots that it's "OK" again. I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about that but this has absolutely zero to do with any notion that "it's too hard". Like, aggravatingly hard gameplay has been a part of video games since video games existed...

[Cobra Mgr]

[Westheim]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

The amazing thing about Michael Lorenzen's performance is not the no-hitter but that they allowed him to throw 124 pitches to get it.

He only has to hold up until October, the Phillies probably don't care where his arm dangles in '24 and beyond.

[Amazin69]

Originally Posted by Syd Thrift

OK, is it a reference to the mental condition of depression? I'm sliiiightly more sympathetic to that except that:

1. The graphic said "tropical depression", which is not at all related to the mental condition and has been around as a thing for ages. I'd honestly be like 10 times more put out if Brown, for example, called someone "hysterical" because that word at least does have actual charged meaning behind it.

2. The issue is still with the graphic, not with Brown commenting on the graphic. Had Brown extended the metaphor into talk of actual depression, there too I would be a lot, lot, lot more sympathetic to his suspension.

I just want to point out to that this isn't "PC run amok" or whatever phrase jackholes are using nowadays ("cancel culture"?). This is a corporation making a stupid corporate decision for ostensibly corporate reasons. It's also entirely possible that their stupid corporate reasons are in fact not related at all to the subject matter and this was just a lynchpin (like, if he's quietly trying to negotiate a new contract, this would hardly be the first time the capitalist class tried to run some guy's name through the mud in order to decrease his value).

Has Baltimore even released an official statement as to why, exactly, he's been suspended? As you noted, people are saying "oh it's just a coincidental bit of time off for a medical condition of his own", which, if true, is its own can of worms with the way people have responded to this (I'm reminded of the gamerzzzz whining about the supposed backlash against the video game Cuphead for "being too hard"; IMO there were significant criticisms to be made of the source material they used for that game* but at that I don't remember a lot else than 'fortunately all that has been pretty well whitewashed'). If they're more or less lying by keeping their mouths shut, that's kind of bad on the O's part as well.

*The game sourced a couple blatantly racist cartoons from the 1930s that concerned Black caricatures being unable to stay away from gambling, a vice that was shown in the form of animated dice, etc. Again, the actual game does not use the racist caricatures and the general consensus is that it's far enough away from those roots that it's "OK" again. I think there's an interesting conversation to be had about that but this has absolutely zero to do with any notion that "it's too hard". Like, aggravatingly hard gameplay has been a part of video games since video games existed...

If this is the reason, it is literally (pardon the phrase) insane.

A depression is a physical low point. A hole in the road, as it were. To say that the production team should have eschewed a perfectly valid phrase because the word has also been applied to people (including myself, btw) who suffer from a mental health issue is ludicrous.

What's the next line of defense? "My father grew up during the Great Depression and it's offensive for you to use that word!" Holy Joe Shlabotnik!

[Cobra Mgr]

Kevin Brown was back on air last night.

Notice in his statement he never denied he was suspended for what everyone is saying. His statement sounds like something prepared for him by Kim Jong Il after a week or 2 of tortuous interrogation. Like he wasn't going to get out of prison unless he said something that allowed his jailers to save public face.

[kq76]

We should inspect him for signs of torture, check his hands, his back, and his sides. Has he actually been on camera yet?

[dsvitak]

OK..who else found out...today, that the Brewers graphic had an "M" and a "B?"

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid...84451975310478