Nick Castellanos did not, in fact, hit a home run on Tuesday, July 20. He got injured on July 19 and was later diagnoses with a microfracture in his right wrist, which could keep him sidelined for quite some time. However, that didn't keep former Reds announcer Thom Brennaman from referencing his infamous home run call for Castellanos that has since become one of the most widely used memes throughout the baseball universe.
Brennaman had the opportunity to make such a reference in a video from Chatterbox Sports, a media site in the Cincinnati area and his new employer. Chatterbox president Trace Fowler started the video with a lengthy statement regarding their decision to bring the disgraced Brennaman, who was caught making a homophobic slur on a hot mic, aboard as their new broadcaster for high school sports (h/t Awful Announcing).
"Today, we're going to announce that Thom Brennaman is going to join us," Fowler said. "And over the past two months, I have done a lot of research to see what kind of person he is. Was the comment that he made, is that who he is? Or was it just a mistake like all of us have made at some point? And the conclusion that I've come up with, quite frankly, is that he's a great person that made a mistake that I know he's deeply regretful for, and we're excited to allow him another opportunity to put a headset on again.
"And the biggest thing that I hope people take away from this is that we are not downplaying what was said, what people feel from that, but more importantly, in my opinion, I hope we don't live in a society where we're essentially going to try to — I don't want to use the word 'cancel' — but we're not going to try to end people's career and think that's ultimately going to fix any kind of problem."
After a few more words, Brennaman was introduced, and he explained how thankful he was for the opportunity.
"...It wasn't just a mistake that I made a year ago. That happened, and some people might know about it, a lot of people might know about it, nobody might now about it," Brennaman said. "I think it's safe to saw we all make multiple mistakes — I know I do every single day of the week... multiple times, every day of the week.
"But I'm just so grateful and excited. I grew up here in Greater Cincinnati. I know what high school football, and high school basketball and high school sports mean to this area. This is what I was doing at Channel Five when my career started, so here we are coming full circle getting back out to high school sports again, and I'm excited. Thank you."
And it was here, at the very end, that Brennaman made a joke about the infamous, oft-referenced Castellanos home run call during his on-air apology.
Most recently, Brennaman had been hired to announce games for the Roberto Clemente League in Puerto Rico.
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