Mark Sanchez is quickly establishing himself as a solid NFL analyst, but he doesn’t appear to have a similar skill for baseball.
Sunday afternoon, Sanchez (seen above last month) and play-by-play voice Kevin Kugler were on the Fox call for the Seattle Seahawks–New York Giants game. During the first half, Seattle kicker Jason Myers converted a 35-yard field goal that was tipped at the line and wobbled through the uprights, prompting Sanchez to reach deep for a baseball analogy.
“I mean that thing looked like a Chuck Knoblauch knuckleball, what the heck?” Sanchez said as the broadcast went to commercial.
Despite the kick getting deflected, Jason Myers' 35-yard field goal is good 😅https://t.co/jI7v9rN2ij
— Seahawks Nation (@12sNationCP) October 30, 2022
What the heck indeed. Knoblauch was not a knuckleball pitcher, nor was he a pitcher at all during his decade-long Major League Baseball career. After Sanchez was alerted to the gaffe, the former NFL quarterback quickly looked for an opening to acknowledge the Knoblauch error.
With Fox cameras showing Giants head coach Brian Daboll laughing on the sideline, Sanchez used it as an opportunity to poke fun at himself. “He’s like, ‘you thought that was bad? I mean, Sanchez dropped a Knoblauch with a knuckleball and he meant to say Tim Wakefield. What an idiot!’ Come on kid, figure it out!”
Mark Sanchez calls himself an idiot on the broadcast pic.twitter.com/UHIjFsczeY
— sports announcers with no context (@nocontxtanncr) October 30, 2022
In defense of Sanchez, while Knoblauch was not a knuckleball pitcher, the infielder did catch a case of the yips late in his career. That caused him to throw some wild balls over to first base. Knoblauch’s throwing deteriorated so much that he infamously sailed an errant throw into the stands, hitting Keith Olbermann’s mother in the head.
While Sanchez’s Knoblauch-knuckleball metaphor may have failed, it was nice of the Fox analyst to give baseball fans something to talk about on Sunday. Despite being in the middle of the World Series, MLB timidly waved a white flag to the NFL this year and avoided scheduling a game on Sunday for the first time since 1947. But MLB was still in the discussion on this NFL broadcast in particular, between Sanchez’s Knoblauch line and referee Jerome Boger citing “the coaching staff of the Seattle Mariners.”
