Johnny Doskow is an experienced baseball announcer, but even broadcasters with 30 years of experience get tripped up every now and then.
Doskow spent the past 22 seasons calling games for the Triple A Sacramento River Cats and is in his first season working regularly with the A’s. He was behind the microphone with Dallas Braden for NBC Sports Bay Area’s coverage of Thursday’s game between the A’s and Astros, which started at 6:40 p.m. local time. Since the sun didn’t set until almost 8:30, that meant parts of the Oakland Coliseum were bathed in sunlight while others were covered in shadows. That’s always tricky for players, but it proved to be difficult for Doskow as well.
Oakland rookie Jordan Diaz led off the bottom of the fourth inning with a long flyball to right-center, where the last of the sunlight was beaming down.
“[Kyle] Tucker going back and so is the center fielder [Jake] Meyers,” Doskow said. “And it is... gone! A home run for Jordan Diaz.”
But it wasn’t. Meyers caught it, and Doskow had to correct himself.
“Oh. Was it caught? Excuse me,” he said. “It was caught. Pardon me.”
"It is...GONE. A home run for Jordan Díaz and it's 2-0 Athletics. Oh. Was it caught? Excuse me. It was caught. Pardon me."
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 21, 2023
The sun in Oakland isn't just tough for the players. pic.twitter.com/ZeuEikMgJz
The fact that Doskow had no idea what happened to the ball just makes Meyers’s catch that much more impressive. He had to cover a ton of ground and make a leaping catch while battling what was obviously some pretty brutal sunlight.
