Mets announcer Gary Cohen rips reported suspension of Orioles play-by-play voice Kevin Brown
Mets broadcaster Gary Cohen. Credit: Mark Levine/Mets
SNY’s Gary Cohen reacted harshly on the air on Monday night to a report about the Orioles suspending his play-by-play counterpart in Baltimore, Kevin Brown.
During the fourth inning of the Mets’ game against the Cubs, Cohen, at times pointing at the camera in rebuking the Orioles, said:
“They are just having a great season, and in the midst of that today, the Baltimore Orioles organization draped itself in utter humiliation with their treatment of one of their young broadcasters, a guy named Kevin Brown, who is one of the great young talents in broadcasting in this game.
“During a recent game at Tropicana Field in St. Petersburg, Kevin during his opening talked about how the Orioles had had trouble winning in the past at Tropicana Field but that they were doing better this year. That was really all he said. And for that the Baltimore Orioles management decided to suspend Kevin Brown.
“Let me just say one thing to Baltimore Orioles management. You draped yourself in humiliation when you fired Jon Miller, and you’re doing it again. And if you don’t want Kevin Brown, there are 29 other teams who do.
“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, and it’s just a shame because the Orioles have played so well and now they’ve diverted attention from that and now made themselves a laughingstock.”
Gary Cohen on the Orioles/Kevin Brown controversy.
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) August 8, 2023
"Let me just say one thing to Baltimore Orioles management. You draped yourself in humiliation when you fired Jon Miller. And you're doing it again. And if you don't want Kevin Brown, there are 29 other teams who do." pic.twitter.com/HkKdr95hQp
Cohen was reacting to a report on the website Awful Announcing that Brown had been suspended for his seemingly matter-of-fact account of the Orioles’ recent history against the Rays in St. Petersburg.
Video of the opening left many on social media baffled by the team’s reaction because Brown’s words seemed so innocuous.
Awful Announcing updated its story on Monday night, saying the Orioles disputed that Brown was suspended.
The site also said The Athletic confirmed that Brown was taken off the air for what he said before that July 23 game.
Brown has been the Orioles’ lead TV play-by-play man on MASN since 2022 and has been with the team since 2019.
On the Yankees’ radio broadcast of Monday night’s game against the White Sox, John Sterling said, “I’ve been on the air 63 years, so I’ve seen a million nutty things happen in this nutty business, but this is right up there with the nuttiest . . . Kevin Brown in a game was extolling the virtues of the new Orioles, talking about what had happened in the past. And the owner of the Orioles, a guy named John Angelos, decided that was negative, and he suspended him.”
Said Suzyn Waldman, “It’s amazing to me. How can you do your job if you can’t tell the truth? But he didn’t even say anything negative. He was extolling how good they are, because look what they’ve done this year, and in the past they didn’t do it. So I don’t understand it. When I saw the clip, I was waiting for him to say something horrible, and it was not.”
Said Sterling, “I’ve never heard of that in my life. If that guy was our boss, we’d get fired every day . . . It’s the nuttiest thing I’ve ever heard, and I’ve been around a while.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
