It’s been pretty commonplace in recent years to see a sports broadcaster have their career end with one, quick on-air mistake, but this latest suspension of Baltimore Orioles announcer Kevin Brown is a head scratcher.
Brown has been calling games for the Orioles since 2019, and also works for ESPN calling college football games. His main gig is the job with Baltimore though, which he has been confusingly suspended from indefinitely.
Social media expected the worst when they saw that another announcer was suspended for something that they said, and clicked on the video of the moment that led to the suspension waiting for the big curse word or controversial statement that never came.
Take a look at the transcript of what Brown said during the Orioles matchup against the Tampa Bay Rays and see if you see anything that would warrant a suspension:
“It’s felt like this has been maybe the toughest ball park to play in, but the Orioles have a chance to do something special today. They’ve already clinched at least a split in the series, winning two of the first three, and they could pick up a series win behind Tyler Wells today.
It’s been a minute. The Orioles split a two-gamer with the Rays in June, they had lost their last 15 series here at Tropicana Field. You have to go back to when our now colleague Brad Brock picked up the win in the series finale (on) June 25th, 2017, the last time the Orioles won a series here in St. Petersburg.
Already got 3 and 2 at the Trop this year after clinching 3 of 18 the previous three years combined. It is a stark difference and it is not a bad Rays team. It’s not like all of the sudden the Rays became slouches in the American League East. They’ve led this division every day but now two, and the Orioles are now once again back alone in first place.”
As it turns out, the announcer was dismissed for being critical of the Orioles record against the Tampa Bay Rays in the past 6 years. There was no “big curse word” or “derogatory remark” that led to the suspension.
Kevin Brown was instead just reading statistics about his team’s record against their opponent in previous years, and bringing to light the team’s struggles led to him being suspended.
Check out the video below:
So yeah, X can’t seem to wrap their heads around what exactly was said that led to a suspension being deserved. One could argue that if the Orioles didn’t suck against the Rays, Brown wouldn’t have been suspended?
Social media users jumped in on the story, giving their takes on the suspension and being confused as ever about the punishment handed out by the Orioles’ broadcast managers:
If there’s not more to it, and at the moment it seems there isn’t, this is an awful move by the Orioles, a team’s whose resurgence I have really enjoyed this season.
— ℕ𝕖𝕒𝕝 𝔹𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕝𝕖𝕪 (@NealBradley) August 7, 2023
Suspended for…doing his job? What was he supposed to say?
— Him Duncan (@BigItaly42) August 7, 2023
I just saw the clip and am very perplexed.
— Bryan Power (@BryanPower_Wins) August 7, 2023
— Tony M (@Nemesis021) August 7, 2023
There better be a missing piece to this story…
— Justin Macmahan (@JustinMacmahan) August 7, 2023
This is going to be a lawsuit.
— Andrew Breschard (@AndrewBreschard) August 7, 2023
Dude did nothing wrong
— Bohm SZN (@AdoptedPedo) August 7, 2023
This is a major L on the Orioles part. Bring KB back!
— Christian Kehr (@ChristianKehr2) August 7, 2023
The broadcast managers have announced that they will be bring Kevin Brown back very soon, but if this is really what got him suspended, he should have never been dismissed in the first place.
