12/21/24
June 20, 2012
Rangers Broadcaster Has On-Air Medical Crisis: Texas Rangers television broadcaster Dave Barnett had some kind of medical crisis during Monday's game against the San Diego Padres. In the eighth inning, Barnett's call became nonsense, leading to fears he was suffering a stroke. "Go-ahead run is at fifth ... on what Adams is insisting on calling a botched robbery. What actually happened was his henchman ..." he said before his mic went silent.
Baseball needs more henchmen, I've always said.
posted by Rock Steady at 12:07 PM on June 20, 2012
Hope he's alright and it's just a minor brain hiccup. This has to be the first time in baseball history a runner reached fifth base.
posted by rcade at 12:33 PM on June 20, 2012
Happened to me in high school. I was in Canada with my girlfriend. You never met her.
posted by yerfatma at 12:55 PM on June 20, 2012
This happened to a coworker of mine. Turns out it's a tumor that has the somewhat misleading label of "benign", given that it's pressing on a part of the brain, sometimes with unpredictable results.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 01:15 PM on June 20, 2012
Got to admire the quick Texas triggers on that alert Rangers broadcast crew. If I had been producing a game against Los Doldrum Padres, I would have been so lulled into a dream state that I might have let Barnett carry on for a good 20 minutes or so before killing his mic.
I wonder if Ozzie Marlin will now try to use a neurology defense to explain any future mishaps he experiences in the brain to tongue department.
posted by beaverboard at 03:02 PM on June 20, 2012
When it comes to tumors, naming them malignant or benign has nothing to do with their lethality. Benign tumors (especially in the brain) can easily kill you. Benign tumors grow and grow and grown and can crush the surrounding tissue. Malignant tumors can grow, but unlike benign they can spread and invade adjacent tissue. Cells can also break off and spread throughout the body, causing metastatic sites. So benign can be deadly based on location, and malignant, well, fuck cancer.
posted by apoch at 08:49 PM on June 20, 2012
This has to be the first time in baseball history a runner reached fifth base.
On the lighter side, he might've had a newspaper handy, turned to the comics section, and got the baseball game confused with a round of Calvinball.
posted by NerfballPro at 10:39 PM on June 20, 2012
It's so weird when you see/hear this happen as you think for a second that YOU'RE the one who has gone a bit strange...
posted by Drood at 10:46 PM on June 22, 2012
This is the third time I've heard about this sort of thing in less than two years.
There was the reporter at the Grammys (mentioned in the article) and a Canadian reporter had a similar incident on live TV a couple of months later.
In the previous two cases, there was no indication of a stroke, but the "migrane headache" was the explanation.