“Tough week for women in sports media,” read a Thursday X post from self-described Christ follower Jon Root as he piled on a video of Seattle Mariners broadcaster Angie Mentink asking Google Gemini, “Good questions after a tough loss in baseball.”
Root was also referring to the situation around NFL reporter Dianna Russini, who resigned from The Athletic earlier this week following a controversy around photos of her and New England Patriots coach Mike Vrabel at a resort.
The two instances, taken together, tell a story about the state of social media and modern media in general, where insinuations can be drawn from incomplete information, with the blanks filled in faster than the truth can take shape.
We live in a world where taking videos of strangers without permission or consent and posting them to the internet is normalized. The ship has sailed on that one, unfortunately. The video of Mentink, taken over her shoulder without her knowledge, is a perfect example of that. Uploaded and shared on X by a user named Cole Smith, it was welcomed by that platform’s dehumanizing algorithm, which is fine-tuned to accelerate the virality of such things.
From there, a multitude of X users, including Barstool Sports, started shaming Mentink and, like Root, creating narratives around the fact that she is a woman working in sports media. (Update: Barstool has deleted the post.)
What almost none of those people knew, and certainly never took a second to consider, is that Mentink suffered a transient ischemic attack, often referred to as a “ministroke,” in February. A day later, she suffered a “severe and unmistakable stroke” that left her paralyzed on her left side. As recounted by Aspen Anderson in Seattle Met, the former UW softball star, who was also diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, set her mind to recovering as quickly as possible so she could return to the baseball diamond.
That she’s even out there working this season seems like a minor miracle. And AI-panic aside, if she feels the need to consult a helpful tool now and again, it seems like the kind of thing only a truly awful person would attack her for.
Mentink, a pro’s pro, took the “gotcha” criticism in stride.
Currently asking AI how to handle going viral for using AI. š
In all seriousness, I’m late to the AI party. Earlier this season I experimented with AI to see if it had any questions to add to my list for my postgame coverage. We’ve come a long way from pen and paper when Iā¦
ā Angie Mentink (@AngieMentink) April 16, 2026
That’s the other thing. The video, which was purported to be after Wednesday night’s Mariners loss to the San Diego Padres, was actually filmed weeks ago, only adding to the knowledge gap that was purposefully created to allow people with no lives the chance to feel better about themselves by attacking a woman on the internet.
Misleading: Not last night’s game
Invasive: Duh
Insensitive: Suffered a stroke *2 months ago*
Irrelevant: Mariners. TV doesn’t do walk-off interviews after losses
No, this was a stroke victim back at work for the first time — weeks ago — trying to regain her bearings. https://t.co/HKwxyrKwi2
ā Daniel Kramer (@DKramer_) April 16, 2026
Root is right in a sense. It has been a tough week for women in sports media. But less because of what they did and more because of the conclusions and insinuations that scumbags on the internet felt the need to share at their expense.
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.