It’s easy for a broadcaster to put their cell phone on silent or vibrate before calling a game, but Jose Siri is presenting a new problem.
Monday night, Tampa Bay Rays play-by-play voice Dewayne Staats welcomed the team’s newly acquired outfielder to the plate during their game against the New York Yankees. And apparently, someone in the Rays broadcast booth is an iPhone user.
“Jose Siri is gonna be the hitter,” Staats said, as is expected from a play-by-play announcer. But as Siri walked toward the play someone’s iPhone chimed in from the booth with the all-too-common phrase, “I’m sorry I didn’t catch that, could you please say that again?”
As someone’s phone was going off on the Rays broadcast, Yankees play-by-play announcer Michael Kay seemed to be enduring a similar issue in New York’s booth.
“Now if I could make a friendly suggestion to all of our great viewers,” Kay began during Siri’s at-bat. “Throughout this series, keep your iPhone away from the TV, cause every time I say ‘Siri,’ it’s gonna kick in.”
Kay’s phone wasn’t heard over the air, maybe he kept it further from the mic or was savvier with the cough button, but that’s not to say Siri won’t catch the Yankees booth at some point during the series.
It was nice of Kay to give the at-home viewing audience a head’s up that their phones may respond to Siri’s at-bat, but what about the Yankee Stadium fans? Apple still owns more than 50 percent of the mobile OS market in the United States. So with a reported attendance of 42,000 fans at Yankee Stadium for Monday night’s game against the Rays, that means there could have been more than 20,000 cell phones responding to the PA announcer welcoming Siri to the plate.
While iOS remains the more popular operating system in America, Android users probably don’t have to worry about someone with the name ‘Hey Google’ making it to the Major Leagues.
[Bally Sports Sun, YES Network]
