Angels broadcaster Terry Smith.
Local NetworksMLBRadioBy Andrew Bucholtz on

There have been a lot of people fooled by parody accounts over the years, from fake reporters to fake insider accounts to Ballsack Sports. One of the latest came Tuesday night on the Los Angeles Angels radio feed, where long-time play-by-play voice Terry Smith (in his 21st season with the team) cited a tweet from noted parody account “New York Porch Sports” (which notes in its own bio: “Satire page run by @yankeelibrarian“) as real. Here’s more on that, from Candice Ortiz at Mediaite:

While recapping scores from other games around the league, Angels broadcaster Terry Smith noted that New York Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole struggled in his outing against the Detroit Tigers. Smith then cited a parody Twitter account New York Porch Sports, which posted a tweet saying, “Gerrit Cole promised an underprivileged school he’d donate 600 MacBooks if he went over two innings tonight. The Yankees ace went 1.2.”

Smith remarked, “He had promised to an underprivileged school in New York before that ballgame, that he would donate 600 Macbooks if he went two innings or more tonight in that ballgame. Certainly a nice gesture on his part. He ended up getting taken out of the game, going an inning and 2/3.”

Here’s audio, via Jomboy Media:

This is a good reminder that not everything you see on Twitter is real, and not everything there is worth repeating on a MLB team’s radio broadcast. Especially if it comes from “New York Porch Sports.” (This is also a good reminder to actually cite your sources. If Smith had thought about saying this as “New York Porch Sports said,” he might have realized it was fake, but Smith’s decision to just go “he had promised” meant that didn’t happen.)

This is also the second negative headline for the Angels’ broadcasts in just a few days. Earlier this week, their lead TV broadcaster Matt Vasgersian (who left ESPN to do more with them and MLB Network) said he was “embarrassed” by the remote broadcasting issues they’ve had.

[Mediaite; Smith photo from @angelsradioklaa in 2020]

 

 

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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