# Cincinnati Reds announcer Thom Brennaman suspended for on-air anti-gay slur **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [August 20, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619 "2020-08-20T23:42:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/1 "2020-08-20T23:42:15Z")
Thom Brennaman is part of sports royalty in Cincinnati. His father, Marty Brennaman, was a long-time member of the radio due of Brennaman and Nuxhall whose voices constituted the soundtrack of summer when I was a kid. The elder Brennaman faced his own scandals in his day. Now the son was caught on a live mic identifying some unknown place as “one of the F— capitals of the world” right before going back on the air. I am guessing he must have thought he was still on an ad break or something. He apologized later in the game on the air and noted that he didn’t know if he would ever be allowed back in the booth before handing off the mic. He later apologized again. The Reds organization and Fox Sports Ohio suspended him immediately. Details here — [Hot mic catches slur from Reds announcer Thom Brennaman](https://sports.yahoo.com/reds-broadcaster-thom-brennaman-homophobic-slur-fox-sports-ohio-mlb-011529900.html?.tsrc=daily_mail&uh_test=2_15) What is interesting is that the sporting infrastructure, even active players, immediately condemned the homophobia. It wasn’t too long ago that homophobia was almost mandatory for people in the sporting world. I also want to note that both Thom Brennaman and his father Marty said something in their statements afterward that makes me want to slap them, along the lines of “this isn’t who I am.” Sorry wrong. This is part of who you are. This is part of who we all are. That’s why it’s so hard to excise bigotry from our society, because it is within us. The way to fight it is to acknowledge it and then deal with it. But you can’t start with denial. Start with self-reflection. Admit your faults and admit that it’s part of who you are, and then work on changing yourself. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/2 "2020-08-21T03:04:35Z")
Damn. I used to listen to him when he was part of the Arizona Diamondbacks broadcasting team. He and Steve Lyons were quite a pair. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/3 "2020-08-21T03:12:26Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This is part of who you are. This is part of who we all are. That’s why it’s so hard to excise bigotry from our society, because it is within us. The way to fight it is to acknowledge it and then deal with it. But you can’t start with denial. Start with self-reflection. Well said. It annoys the crap out of me when people deny their bigotry. The right approach is to recognize that there is inevitably some prejudice lurking in the back of your brain, as long as your frontal cortex acknowledges that it is wrong and you do everything you can to identify and fight it. ---
**Author:** ![Superdude](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/superdude/32/13450_2.png) [@Superdude](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superdude)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/4 "2020-08-21T04:47:05Z")
OP, you might want to have a moderator edit your title to say “suspended” instead of “suspected.” I saw the clip and heard the audio; he said it, all right. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 11:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/5 "2020-08-21T11:00:42Z")
Fixed. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/6 "2020-08-21T11:05:43Z")
[It’s not been a good week for sports announcers.](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2020/08/18/hornets-suspend-announcer-john-focke-nba-tweeted-racial-slur-nuggets/3391725001/#:~:text=The%20Charlotte%20Hornets%20indefinitely%20suspended,%22Nuggets%22%20for%20the%20slur.) ---
**Author:** ![Grrr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grrr/32/146_2.png) [@Grrr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grrr)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/7 "2020-08-21T11:24:42Z")
It’s worth noting Mr. Brennaman felt comfortable using those words in front of his colleagues. So I’m thinking they ALL talk like that. ---
**Author:** ![Jasmine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jasmine/32/2964_2.png) [@Jasmine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jasmine)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 11:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/8 "2020-08-21T11:33:15Z")
A very astute observation! ---
**Author:** ![spifflog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c5a1d2/32.png) [@spifflog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/spifflog)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/9 "2020-08-21T11:59:19Z")
> [@Grrr](#): > > It’s worth noting Mr. Brennaman felt comfortable using those words in front of his colleagues. So I’m thinking they ALL talk like that. Maybe yes, Maybe no. Thom was way up there in the food chain. I’d guess 8 figures up the food chain. Big cats like that aren’t called out by their worker bees, especially if they want to keep working. So among the announcing crowd, I don’t necessarily agree with you. But I think Thom’s problem is that the baseball _players_ may well be the most immature of all that athletes. They are among the least educated to be sure. So I think that culture is prevalent among those in the dugout, and those are the players he associates with. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/10 "2020-08-21T14:33:02Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > [It’s not been a good week for sports announcers.](https://eu.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/2020/08/18/hornets-suspend-announcer-john-focke-nba-tweeted-racial-slur-nuggets/3391725001/#:~:text=The%20Charlotte%20Hornets%20indefinitely%20suspended,%22Nuggets%22%20for%20the%20slur.) I’m a little surprised he didn’t blame it on autocorrect. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/11 "2020-08-21T14:42:33Z")
I think he did. It was observed, however, that this might imply sufficient regular use of the word to ‘train’ the autocorrect to select it. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/12 "2020-08-21T14:43:59Z")
Hmm. Didn’t say so in the article **Gyrate** linked to. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/13 "2020-08-21T14:53:24Z")
> [@Gyrate](#): > > I think he did. It was observed, however, that this might imply sufficient regular use of the word to ‘train’ the autocorrect to select it. Despite the fact that I’ve never written that word, my Google keyboard did the same thing last week when I tried to tell my sister to get some nuggets from McDonalds. Thankfully, I caught it before I sent the text. I had turned off the “block offensive words” setting, (because I never really want to write “ducking”). So I believe it. ---
**Author:** ![TroutMan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troutman/32/6721_2.png) [@TroutMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TroutMan)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/14 "2020-08-21T21:14:51Z")
Brennaman made another attempt at an apology Thursday after it was pointed out that he’d apologized to his bosses but not the LGBTQ community. From Slate: > “I used a word that is both offensive and insulting,” Brennaman wrote, right before a sentence that is extremely hard to believe given that it came from a 56-year-old man and not a baby or an alien. “In the past 24 hours, I have read about its history; I had no idea it was so rooted in hate and violence and am particularly ashamed that I, someone who makes his living by the use of words, could be so careless and insensitive. It’s a word that should have no place in my vocabulary and I will certainly never utter it again.” > > To his credit, Brennaman did not take a break in the middle of this apology to call a drive into deep left field. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/15 "2020-08-22T13:08:44Z")
Slate recounts Brennaman’s deep experience in the apology business > **[Baseball Announcer Thom Brennaman Found a New, Surreal Way to Ruin a Public...](https://slate.com/culture/2020/08/reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-found-a-new-surreal-way-to-ruin-a-public-apology.html)** > > “I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith—as here’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos … ” > October 2006 was an especially apology-filled month for Brennaman. First, [he said he was sorry](https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2006-10-10-0610100113-story.html) for [making fun](https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/10/sports/baseball/10sandomir.html) of a New York Mets fan with degenerative vision who was wearing [a device](https://www.enhancedvision.com/low-vision-product-line/jordy.html) to help him see the action on the field. (Brennaman’s Fox Sports booth partner Steve Lyons was [fired a few days later](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-oct-15-sp-lyons15-story.html) after he made some kind of joke about Lou Piniella, the Spanish language, and a missing wallet during the American League Championship Series.) Most recently, in April 2019, Reds analyst Chris Welsh suggested that second baseman Ozzie Albies, who had just signed an extension with the Atlanta Braves, didn’t know the difference between $35 million and $85 million. The next day Welsh delivered an on-air apology with Brennaman at his side. “This is a good man right here,” [Brennaman said to Welsh afterward.](https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/mlb/reds/2019/04/25/chris-welsh-comment-ozzie-albies-reds-announcer-address-controversy/3578429002/) “Well done. Well done. And I know you meant that very much from the heart.” ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/16 "2020-08-22T17:44:50Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > This is part of who you are. This is part of who we all are. That’s why it’s so hard to excise bigotry from our society, because it is within us [![](https://i.ytimg.com/vi/RovF1zsDoeM/hqdefault.jpg "AVENUE Q - 'Everybody's a Little Racist,' Broadway Cast") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RovF1zsDoeM) ---
**Author:** ![dalej42](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/67e7ee/32.png) [@dalej42](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalej42)\ **Post date:** [August 22, 2020, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/17 "2020-08-22T22:00:28Z")
His entire job is to talk. If he is so incompetent as to not know every mic is hot, that’s enough to fire him. Even if he was just bragging about some hot blonde he met at the hotel bar last night, you don’t do that near a microphone. He wasn’t caught in the center stall in the men’s room by someone’s cell phone. Pride nights in baseball are ubiquitous. You can buy official Reds Pride shirts [Cincinnati Reds Fanatics Branded Team Pride Logo T-Shirt - Black](https://www.fanatics.com/mlb/cincinnati-reds/cincinnati-reds-fanatics-branded-team-pride-logo-t-shirt-black/o-4576+t-47228635+p-8198944875+z-8-1355279580?_ref=p-DLP:m-GRID:i-r12c1:po-37) Fire him. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/18 "2020-08-23T01:29:38Z")
Loved the mid-apology pause to announce the line drive. You just can’t make this stuff up. ---
**Author:** ![Asuka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@Asuka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asuka)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/19 "2020-08-23T10:04:29Z")
To be fair he’s being paid to call games not apologize. ---
**Author:** ![Harrington](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac8455/32.png) [@Harrington](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harrington)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619/20 "2020-08-23T12:13:38Z")
Everyone has used that term, and other disparaging terms. Everyone has used such terms before, and will do so after. If you haven’t, or think you haven’t, then you are a holy, righteously unique individual, and I would love to get your autograph. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/cincinnati-reds-announcer-thom-brennaman-suspended-for-on-air-anti-gay-slur/918619.md?page=2)