The website Awful Announcing reported on Monday that Brown is on the rocks. Shame on whoever is responsible for the suspension.
It’s been more than two weeks since the last time Kevin Brown broadcasted an Orioles game on MASN. This is not unusual in and of itself, with the network often rotating through play-by-play announcers and color commentators according to a schedule that’s not public.
However, on Monday afternoon, the website Awful Announcing reported through multiple sources that Brown has been suspended indefinitely. At the root of the suspension, according to AA, was Brown observing during a July 23 broadcast that the Orioles had exceeded their combined number of wins at Tropicana Field over the past three seasons before this one.
(Small post-publication update: An Orioles official responded to The Baltimore Banner’s Andy Kostka by saying, “We don’t comment on employment decisions, however, Kevin Brown will be back with us in the near future.” I hope that this official delivers on his promise better than owner John Angelos did with his spring training business about allowing Orioles reporters to see the team’s financial information.)
The only appropriate reaction to this news is disbelief, because it is so stupid that how could it possibly be true that this remark led to a suspension? AA provided the video clip that they are reporting has led to the suspension:
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
In the full clip here, it is clear that he is pretty much just verbally summarizing the information in the on-screen graphic that provided some of the grim recent failure by the team at Tropicana Field. I am utterly flabbergasted to think that anyone in the command structure at MASN – a collective group of whom I already think negatively for a variety of reasons – could have found anything objectionable in this statement of truth.
The Awful Announcing article noted that after the Rays series, Brown appeared on the radio against the Phillies because, it said, of “another controversy about a different announcer’s apparel,” which is an entirely different crazy thing that had not been publicly mentioned until today.
It is my opinion that only a hopelessly thin-skinned person could possibly hand out a suspension to a talented broadcaster for the remarks that are reportedly at issue here. Whoever was involved in directing this suspension or signing off on it, shame on you. Get over whatever has made you this way and get Brown back on the air with back pay and apologies. Orioles fans deserve better than this.