Even though some people get paid millions of dollars to talk about sports, they can still just as easily slip up with words just like the rest of us.
Kirk Herbstreit is arguably one of the best in the business when it comes to calling football games, and allow me to emphasize the football part of that statement. He’s been a staple of ESPN’s College Gameday for the show’s entire existence, and also recently got called upon to help legendary announcer Al Michaels call Thursday Night Football games on Amazon Prime.
If you are familiar with the college football schedule, you can probably put two and two together and realize that being a part of College Gameday and calling the NFL’s Thursday night game makes for a pretty chaotic couple of days for Kirk. Plus, during the full-swing of the football schedule, he was making sure he didn’t miss his son’s high school games on Friday nights either.
Herbstreit shared this video back in September of all the flights he would be taking in one weekend to make it to all of his obligations:
You would think that a normal person could only do so much of that traveling, and prep to be able to talk about all of the games in a professional manner, before they crumbled apart. And props to him, because he made it all the way until December until he finally slipped up.
Herbstreit and Michaels were calling the Thursday Night Football game between the New Orleans Saints and the Los Angeles Rams, and because they were in Los Angeles, the news of Shohei Ohtani’s blockbuster deal with the Dodgers naturally came up.
Remember, I said there’s no one better in the business than Kirk to talk about football, but when it comes to baseball, I’m not sure Herbstreit could have butchered Ohtani’s name any worse. In his defense, Kirk sounded like he was a little under the weather (who isn’t this time of the year), so that might have played a role in how he mispronounced Shohei Ohtani.
It instead came out as:
“Shohan Ahtony”
Brutal…better luck next time Kirk (and something tells me he’ll do everything he can to avoid ever saying Ohtani’s name on the air ever again).
They also talked about how great it was that Ohtani was “now in Los Angeles with the Dodgers”…when he’s been playing for the Los Angeles Angels this entire time? That was kind of a weird detail that social media had trouble with last night, and for good reason.
Maybe it’s because the Angels are cursed to be eternally mediocre?
