Brennaman tries to ‘own’ ‘drive into deep left by Castellanos’ jokes

As many Twitter users pointed out the similarities between Thom Brennaman's call of Cincinnati Reds outfielder Nick Castellanos' home run against the Kansas City Royals during his apology for using a homophobic slur on the air and Castellanos' homer Monday night - also against the Royals in Kansas City - as Royals play-by-play broadcaster Ryan Lefebvre tried to pay tribute to the late George A. Gorman, Brennaman - who insists he's "not on social media" - appeared with comedian Josh Potter on The Josh Potter Show to discuss how he's slowly come around to accept that people enjoy making jokes about the now-famous "drive into deep left field by Castellanos" call he made mid-apology last August.

"I always say to my kids all the time: 'Before you have something to say about something, try to walk in another person's shoes on multiple things,'" Brennaman told Potter. "Things that all of a sudden it looks like this person is for sure did this or did that or whatever it might be and before you really know though for sure, you might want to take three steps back, try to walk in their shoes and maybe see it from where they're coming from. And you know when I'm sitting there making that apology on the air, I am literally watching my career go down the drain - right in front of your very eyes. But you're also trained for 34 years of doing Major League Baseball, that the game is always first. Nothing is more important than what's going on in the game. And I've got all this stuff going around and swirling through my mind. And I know that I'm gonna lose my job. And I'm doing the very, very best I can to piece together some semblance of an apology that people will know is sincere because it was incredibly sincere. You know it bothered me for a long time and it bothered my son a lot - who is 16 years old - that it's almost become a joke. And I'm not on Twitter. I'm not on social media. Because I can be told by my wife what a jerk I am all the time. I don't need 10,000 other people telling me what a jerk I am. But to make light of it, like, you know 'the Castellanos home run' - I mean I've heard it 1,000 times. You know, at the end of the day - now that a year has gone by - I can laugh about it. There's this charity here in town that I'm working with, with children at a children's home in Northern Kentucky ... kids that have been thrown out of their homes for being gay, or being transgender. ... It's unimaginable if you're a parent. And we're thinking about putting together a T-shirt with something like, you know, 'And Castellanos has homered' - trying to raise money for this children's home. (The idea) was great. But it really bothered me deeply because, I mean, I wasn't dying. And my wife wasn't dying. My kids weren't dying. Our dogs weren't dying. ... It was just though - it was a tough moment. And you're doing your very, very best. And really at the end of the day, you just do the very, very best you can. And I've tried to do that since then. And we'll see what happens.