Comerica Park in Detroit, MI, the home of baseball’s Detroit Tigers, whose television play-by-play announcers were reportedly involved in a post-game scuffle following Tuesday’s game. (Source: goodfreephotos.com)
If you are a baseball fan, you’ve probably seen your share of bench-clearing brawls between players during games for years, or perhaps heard about the occasional clubhouse fight also between players – one of those happened in fact just two nights ago involving members of the Seattle Mariners. But announcers getting into a fight? Well, that’s a new one for us here at LPP, but it appears that such an incident has taken place.
The Athletic, the popular sports news website (subscription required), is reporting this morning that the men who call Detroit Tigers games for television network Fox Sports Detroit got into a scuffle following the conclusion of their broadcast of the Tigers’ game in Chicago against the White Sox Tuesday night, a game which Detroit won handily 8-3. But it has been a struggle for Detroit this season, well under .500 and out of the postseason picture, and there have been reportedly rumblings in the past that the two announcers, play-by-play man Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen, did not get along with each other. But news of this reported incident between the two perhaps bakes the cake.
TV station officials declined comment to the Athletic when reached about this matter, but it should be noted that both they and the Bless You Boys blog that covers the team for the SBNation network of sports blogs also reported that the two announcers did not call last night’s game in Chicago for the network, and were replaced by alternate commentators. How long that will continue remains to be seen.
Fox Sports Detroit is part of the Fox Sports TV family, but is also set to be sold soon as part of the proposed Fox sale of TV sports networks that resulted from their merger of other TV networks with Disney, who owns ESPN.