Baseball broadcasters often pay attention to unusual out-of-town plays or moments, but ESPN broadcaster Jon “Boog” Sciambi took that to a new level Sunday. While calling the Los Angeles Dodgers-Los Angeles Angels game for ESPN Radio, Sciambi got a text about Arizona Diamondbacks’ catcher Jeff Mathis pitching in the 16th inning of their game against the San Diego Padres. During a lull in Dodgers-Angels, Sciambi tuned into the Diamondbacks-Padres game on his phone and he and analyst Chris Singleton started discussing position players pitching. Sciambi then started to call a pitch from Mathis, which actually turned into the game-winning home run from Wil Myers.
Fortunately, Sciambi quickly realized what he’d done before calling the result of the pitch, and explained what happened, cracking up Singleton in the process. He also admitted to the mistake on Twitter, and the MLB on ESPN Radio account then tweeted out the audio:
Audio proof of Boog watching the #GenerationDBacks #LetsGoPadres game pic.twitter.com/obCl340MGO
— MLB on ESPN Radio (@MLBonESPNRadio) July 9, 2018
Singleton says “It’s a little harder than people think, even though you’ve got a good arm as an outfielder,” and Sciambi goes “The 1-2.” After a brief pause, Singleton continues “Not that easy to just hit 90.” Sciambi then says “Wil Myers just hit one into the pool, and I almost called it, I was watching the game.” Singleton says “I was like ‘What was he thinking? Justin and I were looking at each other, I looked at the field, there’s nothing happening.” Sciambi says “Yeah, there was no pitch. Wil Myers just hit one.”
That’s a pretty funny moment, but Sciambi did well to immediately recognize the mistake and correct it. Still, you don’t hear that every day.
