Baltimore Orioles play-by-play announcer Kevin Brown was reportedly suspended from his TV duties basically because O’s owner John Angelos can’t get out of his own stupid way.
According to a report on Awful Announcing, Brown, the voice of the O’s on MASN since the beginning of the 2022 season, was taken off the air because Angelos didn’t like a pre-taped segment featuring Brown ahead of Baltimore’s July 23 series finale at Tampa Bay.
Brown noted in the segment that the Orioles had already won as many games in Tampa Bay this season going into that one than in the last three seasons combined.
Yes, that’s it; that’s why Brown was suspended from his job.
Among the odd things about this: it wasn’t a flippant comment, as you could gather from the fact that the producer had a graphic ready to put on the screen as Brown talked over it to illustrate what he was saying.
Note: I haven’t seen anywhere if the producer of the segment was also suspended, but we wouldn’t necessarily notice if a behind-the-scenes person wasn’t around.
It’s not like the package made the team or the organization look bad. The Orioles, until this own goal, had been the feel-good story of MLB in 2023, building off the surprise 83-79 final record last year to surge into the lead in the loaded AL East this season, just two years off a 52-110 finish.
O’s fans, long-suffering, have reason to be excited about their team; that 52-110 record in 2021 was the third 100+-loss season for the franchise in four years, that streak interrupted only by the short season in 2020 due to the pandemic.
You’d think that pointing out things like, hey, we’re doing better against our rivals this year than we have in a while, would be a good thing.
But in Birdland, pointing out good things gets you a couple of weeks off.
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Chris Graham
