Jimmy “Jomboy” O’Brien isn’t a reporter — and he’ll be the first to tell you that.
It’s the very first line in his bio on X (formerly Twitter). But he is a media figure. When you build a platform, fill it with content, and shape the conversation around a major league team, you don’t get to opt out of the responsibility that comes with influence. Jomboy may not call himself a journalist, but his weekly interviews with Yankees manager Aaron Boone — now done in place of Boone’s traditional WFAN spot — show just how much that distinction matters.
Which brings us to the Yankees. And Aaron Judge.
On Sunday’s Talkin’ Yanks, Jomboy awarded Judge the “I’m glad you didn’t die in a car accident your senior year of high school” award. Then he asked his producer to pull up a reenactment video Judge made in high school, part of a drunk-driving PSA program, where he’s zipped up in a body bag as if he had, in fact, died.
Yes, they actually showed that.
“It’s a scary what if because he’s one of the best hitters ever,” said Jomboy.
“And he’s not actually dead; they’re faking it,” Jomboy adds. “It’s a PSA against drinking and driving. Dude, I can’t believe this is a reenactment, and they actually zip it over his head fully.”
Of course, Judge was never in a car accident. The video came from a school awareness campaign. But instead of letting it stay what it was — a solemn PSA — they resurrected it for a segment that managed to be jarringly weird and unintentionally grim.
Sure, we get the idea: “We’re glad Aaron Judge is alive.” That’s a fine sentiment. But when the way you express it involves cueing up footage of your team captain playing dead, zipped into a fake body bag, it might be time to ask whether the bit is worth the joke.
And then, after all that, they tossed in a sunny Mother’s Day shoutout to Judge’s mom, Patty.
Because nothing says “Happy Mother’s Day” quite like watching your son get zipped up like a corpse on your favorite Yankees podcast.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.