Thom Brennaman, welcome to the unemployment line

My best guess: everyone involved here was in shock. Absolute shock. I guess there was some length of time between his comments and the apology? That says to me his producers, his bosses, the Reds, everyone, were like, “Holy #$&@, did that just really happen? WTF!?!”

I’d imagine the Brennaman name on Reds’ broadcasts adds to the enormity of the situation, from a local perspective.

My Rio situation is not completely analogous to this, but there are similarities in the sense that everyone is coming to grips in real time with what has happened. You want to slow things down and make proper decisions, handle this the way it should be handled — but social media is going batshit and you feel like you’re driving 225 mph through S curves. Time is your enemy, not your friend.

If Brennaman doesn’t check social media (or his phone) during games, he might not have any clue that his words went over the airwaves.

That’s the only way to explain what Brennaman said — even calling the home run. I remember the aftermath of my mistake. I was totally shaken, frightened for my career. It’s the only time that’s ever happened to me. It’s hard to describe, but you see the end coming. You have only one choice: to throw yourself on the mercy of the crowd. He didn’t do that, instead calling for people who know him to defend him. He’s realizing the severity, he’s seeing what’s about to become of his life.

It’s easy to second-guess now, but he (or someone helping him, because he’s in shock) should have written an apology that accepted blame in no uncertain terms, apologizing first to the community he offended. But I’m guessing that didn’t happen, because everyone’s stunned.

 

I don't think it is about an investigation or corroboration. He said what he said and it's a shitstorm now.

It's that the Brennaman name is royalty in Cincy b/c of his dad and the decades he was the voice of the team. Tom Brennaman himself isn't just a throwaway local play by play guy, either. He has a national profile because of his CFB work on Fox. He also moved there to do games with his dad at the end. It's hard to fire something like that when you had no plans for something like this.

If his name was anything except Brennaman, I'd agree with you, but he put them into a difficult spot. I am sure they are frozen, trying to buy time to see if there is a way out of it. And they likely are going to find there isn't.