Thom Castellanos Edit by Liam Maguire
By Sean Keeley on

There’s a truly baffling, Mandela Effect-like fact that the phrase “as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos” really only became a meme around September 25, 2020, more than a month after it was uttered. Not until the person who said it, Thom Brennaman, son of Cincinnati legend and Ford C. Frick Award–winner Marty Brennaman, officially resigned from his post with the Cincinnati Reds.

In the time between, it was stewing. Marinating. Approaching a critical mass until it could reach its final form as a copypasta meme. So that even those who weren’t watching the Reds take on the Kansas City Royals in the back half of a Wednesday doubleheader on August 19 would understand what was meant when someone interrupted their own somber message with “as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos.”

It seems so wild in retrospect that the phrase could live in our reality for almost five weeks and not be culturally ever-present. Especially given the way those words impacted the trajectory of the man who said them and the man they were said about.

So many quirky details are often lost in the retelling of what happened that night. Among them is the fact that the homophobic slur Brennaman uttered to necessitate his apology occurred during the first game of the doubleheader. As Fox Sports Ohio (now FanDuel Sports Network Ohio) returned from a commercial before the seventh inning, the longtime team announcer didn’t realize his mic was hot when he said “one of the f** capitals of the world” about San Francisco. It wasn’t until the fifth inning of the second game, when that comment had gone mega-viral on social media, that he was pulled off the air.

Before leaving the booth, he was given the chance to offer an apology. While Reds right fielder Nick Castellanos was leading off the inning, Brennaman waited for his opening. He found one when a low pitch from Royals reliever Greg Holland was called for a strike, and Castellanos turned to debate the merits of that call with the umpire. As the Reds slugger pleaded his case, the announcer launched into a last-ditch effort to save his job and reputation.

“Jim Day’s gonna be taking us the rest of the way through this game as Holland takes over on the mound,” he began. “Um, I made a comment earlier tonight that I guess went out over the air that I am deeply ashamed of. If I have hurt anyone out there, I can’t tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart, I’m so very, very sorry.”

We pause here because, so far, everything that’s occurring is as one might expect it to. Brennaman seems to grasp the severity of what’s happened and is laying his cards on the table, even if it’s too little, too late.

But while Brennaman has pulled focus with his apology, the game he’s calling has continued. Much like time, the Kansas City Royals bullpen waits for no one. The Fox Sports Ohio broadcasting team knew this as well and brought the visuals back to the action on the field. As the apology continued, the cameras returned at precisely the perfect moment to capture Castellanos launching the baseball 410 feet over the left-centerfield fence (next to a Planet Fitness billboard that read “judgment-free zone” in another absurd detail often lost to time).

As the ball took off, Brennaman, a veteran Major League Baseball announcer of three decades, instinctively cut off his own apology to call the home run.

“I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith—as there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run, and so that’ll make it a 4–0 ballgame,” he said with a monotone patter usually reserved for calling the opponent’s big plays.

Castellanos circled the bases and Brennaman returned to that apology, picking up where he left off.

“I don’t know if I’m gonna be putting on this headset again. I don’t know if it’s gonna be for the Reds, I don’t know if it’s gonna be for my bosses at Fox,” he said. “I want to apologize for the people who sign my paycheck—for the Reds, for Fox Sports Ohio, for the people I work with, for anybody that I’ve offended here tonight. I can’t begin to tell you how deeply sorry I am. That is not who I am. It never has been. And I’d like to think maybe I could have some people that could back that up. I am very, very sorry, and I beg for your forgiveness. Jim Day will take you the rest of the way home.”

Jim Day did indeed take us home while the Reds split the doubleheader with a 5-0 evening win, and the sports world waited to find out Brennaman’s fate. You might falsely remember that he had resigned from the Reds the next day, but that actually wouldn’t happen for over a month. That evening, Fox Sports Ohio released a statement condemning the comments, and the Reds suspended him. The next day, Fox Sports announced that he would no longer work on their NFL broadcasts.

Brennaman seemingly tried to apologize through it, offering sobering comments to The Athletic and writing an op-ed in the Cincinnati Enquirer titled “What I said was wrong.” On one hand, the embattled announcer took the time to meet with local LGBTQ activists and colleagues. On the other hand, he claimed to several reporters that he had never used that word before in his life, which was less than believable.

It wasn’t until September 25 that Thom, having failed to sway many people with his home-run-call-infused apology and forgiveness tour, resigned from the position, saying, “It is my hope and intention to return. And if I’m given that opportunity, I will be a better broadcaster and a much better person.”

That is, of course, only half of the story. Unbeknownst to him at the time, Nick Castellanos was about to become something bigger than himself. The two-time All-Star left the Reds to sign with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022, but brought with him that propensity for getting big hits, often home runs, in somber and tragic situations.

On July 5, 2021, Castellanos homered while Royals color commentator Ryan Lefebvre eulogized George Gorman, a World War II veteran whose son had been working for the Royals for 26 years.

On September 11, 2021, the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Castellanos hit a home run against the St. Louis Cardinals.

On March 27, 2022, Blue Jays commentator Buck Martinez was discussing pitching coach Pete Walker’s DUI as Castellanos smacked a single.

On May 30, 2022, Phillies play-by-play announcer Tom McCarthy was offering a Memorial Day tribute to veterans and servicemen who lost their lives when Castellanos hit a solo home run to left field against the San Francisco Giants.

On August 19, 2023, the third anniversary of the inciting incident, Castellanos homered.

On October 11, 2023, Castellanos hit a two-run home run as TBS commentators discussed former Phillies manager Charlie Manuel’s rehabilitation from a stroke.

On June 18, 2024, Castellanos recorded a walk-off double a little after the death of Willie Mays was announced.

On July 13, 2024, the day Donald Trump was shot in an assassination attempt, Castellanos hit a home run to give the Phillies the lead over the Oakland Athletics.

On July 21, 2024, Castellanos hit a home run into deep left field with two outs in the bottom of the ninth. This was notable because it was the day President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, and also the day Brennaman was announced to return to national broadcasts.

On September 11, 2024, Castellanos homered once more.

Castellanos, as a living meme, evolved over time. Some now feel as though the whole thing has jumped the shark and no longer represents what made it so iconic in the first place. For others, it’s taken on a life of its own because that’s what we want it to do. We’d rather continue living in a world where Nick somehow “does it again” than one where he doesn’t. In a time when it can often feel like nothing matters, Nick Castellanos getting a big hit during or close to depressing news is something tangible to center ourselves around.

So tangible is the Nick Castellanos Effect that after Pope Francis died on April 21, 2025, FanDuel had to temporarily lock betting on him because so many people expected to see a drive into deep left field. He didn’t homer that day, but the existential threat that Castellanos represents lingers, now and forever.

As previously mentioned, Brennaman’s time in the wilderness ended well before this fifth anniversary.

At first, it seemed like the only jobs he might be able to get were akin to being the play-by-play announcer in Puerto Rico’s Roberto Clemente League, as he did for the 2020–21 season. In 2021, he began calling high school games in the Cincinnati area for subscription service Chatterbox Sports.

However, in 2024, Brennaman was back in the big leagues, hired by CW Sports as their new lead announcer for college football games.

“I can’t be more grateful to a group of people than I am to the people at CW for giving me this opportunity,” he said at the time.

Whatever one might think of Brennaman for his initial comment and apologies, this wasn’t just a case of moving on without acknowledgement. For many in the LGBTQ+ community, this was the culmination of a lot of hard work he’d done in the intervening years.

“Countless LGBTQ people in the Cincinnati area have sung his praises as a sincere man reborn,” wrote Outsports’ Cyd Zeigler in early 2025. “In my dozens of conversations with Brennaman, he has come across as just that. Yet some people warned that, if given said second chance, he might drop a slur again. As though the guy who saw his career ruined, spent countless hours meeting with and listening to the struggles of gay people, and might be the most aware person in all of sports media, would let that happen.”

Brennaman had come so far that he was even able to make a winking Castellanos joke of his own during one broadcast.

In April, 700 WLW-AM announced Brennaman would be the new host of their weekday morning show. It’s an opportunity to be a voice in the city he was synonymous with for so long. And a chance to make good on that apology and requests for forgiveness. To prove they weren’t just words.

Five years on from that fateful night, so many more things seem possible. The idea of Thom Brennaman returning to the Reds booth has mostly seemed impossible. Now, it’s not out of the realm of possibility, even if just for one night.

Who knows, perhaps Brennaman and Castellanos can sit down one day and discuss the events that will intrinsically link them for the rest of their lives. Or maybe they’re destined to continue down their parallel paths, one of redemption and one of destruction, never actually meeting in the middle.

Perhaps that’s the takeaway from August 19, 2020. Who could have foreseen everything that happened the way it did? So many things had to go wrong, or right, for it to play out like that. And so many things could have happened, or not happened, to change the outcome. And it’s still playing out like that.

That’s the thing about a drive into deep left field. You never really know where the ball’s going to land until it gets there.

About Sean Keeley

Along with writing for Awful Announcing and The Comeback, Sean is the Managing Editor for Comeback Media. Previously, he created the Syracuse blog Troy Nunes Is An Absolute Magician and wrote 'How To Grow An Orange: The Right Way to Brainwash Your Child Into Rooting for Syracuse.' He has also written non-Syracuse-related things for SB Nation, Curbed, and other outlets. He currently lives in Seattle where he is complaining about bagels. Send tips/comments/complaints to sean@thecomeback.com.

View all posts by Sean Keeley