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The Baltimore Orioles have been the revelation of the 2023 Major League Baseball season.
Baltimore currently boasts an incredible 70-42 record, the best in the American League and three games ahead of the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL East.
This comes on the back of a five-year stretch of losing seasons from 2017-2021 for the O’s. Their 2018 record of 47-115 was the worst in baseball by more than 10 games.
Things began to look up in 2022 after an impressive 83-79 season. But nobody expected this.
Not least of whom was MASN Orioles broadcaster Kevin Brown. Ahead of July 23rd game against the Rays, Brown remarked at how incredible the turnaround has been given how much the team had struggled recently.
Here's the clip of Kevin Brown's pregame comments on the Orioles' recent record against the Rays ahead of a series finale on July 23. Sources tell AA these comments led to Brown's current indefinite suspension from Orioles' broadcasts. pic.twitter.com/csURU04fJU
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 7, 2023
As it turns out, the organization did not take kindly to his (incredibly innocuous) comments and had him booted off of TV.
The Orioles own 77 percent of the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network, with the Washington Nationals owning the other 23.
The suspension set the internet on fire and everyone from fans to fellow broadcasters ripped the organization.
“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,” New York Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen said of the move. “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.”
Baltimore and its owners must have been paying attention.
Brittany Ghiroli of The Athletic reports that Brown now has a return date.
“Brown is expected to return to the broadcast booth on Aug. 11, sources say,” Ghiroli wrote. “And if he does, it will be a welcome sight. But one has to wonder what kind of message this sends to anyone in the organization, who can seemingly be taken out of their jobs without so much as a blink, and how Brown can return and not worry about everything he says and does being taken out of context.”
It’s a sad distraction for players and coaches who have had an otherwise incredible year. But it’s what fans have come to expect from the organization.