Kevin Brown, the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network’s lead play-by-play announcer for Orioles games, was removed from the club’s television broadcasts a day after listing off factual statistics about Baltimore’s poor play in recent past seasons, sources with knowledge of the team’s decisions told The Baltimore Sun.
Brown hasn’t been featured on MASN broadcasts for the past two weeks but is scheduled to rejoin Friday, when the Orioles begin a series in Seattle to start a three-city trip out west, a source confirmed.
The decision has rankled many across the baseball world, with several notable broadcasters lambasting the Orioles, MASN and chairman John Angelos on social media and live television.
⚾SNY’s Gary Cohen: “Let me just say one thing to Baltimore Orioles management: You draped yourself in humiliation when you fired Jon Miller, and you’re doing it again,” Cohen said during the broadcast for Monday’s New York Mets-Chicago Cubs game. “And if you don’t want Kevin Brown, there are 29 other teams who do. It’s a horrendous decision by the Orioles. I don’t know what they were thinking, but they’ve gotten exactly the reaction that they deserve, and it’s just a shame because the Orioles are playing so well, and now they’ve diverted attention from that and now made themselves a laughingstock.”
⚾YES Network’s Michael Kay: “This makes the Orioles look so small and insignificant and minor league,” Kay said during his radio show Monday. “And of course they don’t comment on personnel matters ... but can you imagine how that guy [Brown] must feel? He has to keep his mouth shut. He can’t criticize the Orioles, because then he’ll get fired. And of course we look forward to Kevin coming back. But you embarrassed the guy for no reason. And most importantly, you embarrassed yourself. What you did is disgraceful to the business. Disgraceful. Fans of teams should be lucky when their announcers are allowed to be critical, and that wasn’t even critical. I believe that was complimentary of the Orioles.”
⚾WFAN Radio’s John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman: “I’ve been on the air 63 years, so I’ve seen a million nutty things happen in this nutty business. This is right up there with the nuttiest,” Sterling said during Monday’s New York Yankees-Chicago White Sox broadcast. “It’s amazing to me,” analyst Suzyn Waldman, Sterling’s broadcast partner, said. “How can you do your job if you can’t tell the truth? But he didn’t even say anything negative. He was extolling how good they are because look what they’ve done this year, and in the past they didn’t do it. I don’t understand it. When I saw the clip, I was waiting for him to say something horrible.” “I’ve never heard of that in my life,” Sterling said. “If [John Angelos] was our boss, we’d get fired every day. We comment that the Yankees have terrible batting averages, and they have terrible on-base percentages.”
⚾SiriusXM’s Chris ‘Mad Dog’ Russo: “This idiot [John] Angelos, who’s never won a damn thing,” Russo said during his Monday radio show, “this is the guy that gets [Brown] fired or gets him demoted or gets him silenced for a period of time as sort of punishment. Are you kidding me?! That is a disgrace. That is so bad, I don’t even know how to comment. Who would want to be a play-by-play guy of the Orioles?”
⚾NBC Sports Philadelphia’s Tom McCarthy: “This makes very little sense,” McCarthy tweeted. “He didn’t build the graphic and if he did, it only accentuated the great story of the Orioles. They should be proud of what they have done, not offended.”
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