Somehow, someway, two separate Baltimore Orioles broadcasts of their 4-3 loss to the Philadelphia Phillies Tuesday night wound up delivering incredible separate reverse jinxes followed by home runs. On the TV side, analyst Ben McDonald mentioned how Orioles’ recent callup Jordan Westburg was still looking for his first MLB home run, which came only moments later. And on the radio side, announcer Geoff Arnold had quite the lines on how Phillies’ star Bryce Harper “has that same recognizable violent uppercut swing…but it’s not the same quality of contact” right before Harper hit a home run:
lol Orioles radio tho https://t.co/wPvvVOCmvc pic.twitter.com/o2pcWa3EJc
— Nick Piccone (@_piccone) July 26, 2023
Yep, that’s going to go down in the hallowed halls of noted reverse jinxes. And it’s even funnier still to see that happen from the Orioles’ radio broadcast in the same game where their TV broadcast reverse jinxed one of their own players, with that particular reverse jinx taking place only four innings earlier.
Of course, whether you believe announcers’ comments have any impact at all on what happens on the field of play is entirely up to you. And the whole idea of jinxes and reverse jinxes from the announcing booth has long been debated. It’s also true that some version of “jinx” or “reverse jinx” is all but inevitable statistically; announcers often discuss how players have been doing, good or bad, and that’s of course going to lead to some jinx discussion when the opposite happens. But it’s quite funny that two reverse jinxes showed up in two separate situations on two separate Orioles’ broadcasts in a single game.
[Nick Piccone on Twitter]
