A Drive Deep into Left Field

one guy, Philadelphia. Philly's outfielder Nick Castillanos isn't exactly having his best season, but while his numbers are down, he still leads the league in a pretty remarkable category that you won't find in any traditional stats. On this episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly, s I, senior writer John Wortheim tells the tale of how Costaianos became a meme by hitting home runs that have been, let's say, oddly and

hilariously timed, again and again and again. And we should note this piece also includes the voice of the late, great, legendary Dodgers announcer of In Scully, perhaps the only person who was castaganos Pero. May he rest in Baseball broadcast habit, I'm your host John Gonzalez from Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. This is Sports Illustrated Weekly. Here's John Wortheim to calculate the long odds on the timing of Costallanos's long bombs. Never mind the honey delivery, the wit, or

the accumulated baseball wisdom. For all his various and sundry broadcasting gifts, Vince Scully was blessed above all with exquisite timings for all the high five of the goes back to the fan. He may have called baseball games all those years, but he would have been a wonderful conductor or musician, says Al Michael's a Scully protege dating back to his Brooklyn boyhood. He just has this intuition for the rhythm of the game. A viable woman for baseball.

What a viral vomit for the country in the world. The running joke was at baseball waited for Scully, not the other way around. If Ben was in the middle of an anecdote and it was a two two count, says Ted Robinson, a long time MLB announcer, you could be sure the batter would foul off the next pitch, just to be sure Vin would get through his story. All of which is to say, it's a good bet that's Scully never much intersected with Philly's right fielder Nick Castianos.

By now you likely know the story or stories all three of them. On October, Castianos was playing for the Reds during an otherwise somnolent summer game devoid of much significance. Cincinnati's played by play ban at the time, Tom Brenneman, spoke carelessly and cruelly into an open mic during the seventh inning of the first game of a double header. Brennaman didn't realize the broadcast was back from commercial break,

and he made an anti lgbt Q slur. By the second game, as social media did its thing, it had become clear that Brenneman's vile comment was going to be a problem. In what was both an apology and a clear attempt to salvage his job, Brennaman began the fifth inning with a soliloquy, I made a comment earlier tonight that I guess UH went out over the year that I am deeply ashamed of UM. If I have heard anyone out there, I can't tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart I'm so very

very sorry. I pride myself and think of myself as a a man of faith. As he was winding up, so was Kansas City reliever Breg Holland, who offered a fastball to Castianos, the batter at the time. As Brennaman continued, castiano'ss bad collided violently with a pitch, resulting in a towering four hundred and ten foot drive. And we got this from Brennaman. As there is a drive in a deep left field by Costiganos, it will be a home run and so that'll make it a for nothing ball game.

When that awkward interruption was over, and as Castiano's rounded the basis, Brennaman went back to doing damage control. I don't know if I would be putting on this headset again, As ESPNS public Torrey puts it perfectly. Watching Brennaman break the fourth wall and then suddenly reconstruct that wall in the same breath remains one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Brenneman was indeed done in the Red s booth. He finished the apology, then turned the broadcast over to

Jim day mid Gay. The team suspended Brennaman that night, and he resigned a little over a month later. He now broadcasts high school sports in the Greater Cincinnati area. Castianos, on the other hand, was just getting started. The next time the Reds visited Kansas City, he struck again George Gorman, a World War Two veteran and the father of Royal's

longtime equipment manager Patrick Gorman, had recently died. Coming out of the break at the top of the seventh inning, Kansas City announcer Ryan la Fever began a poignant eulogy of Gorman. Nick Castiano Snow was batting, and he chose that precise moment to go deep with this seventeenth home run of the season. Here's the call delivered by La Fiver as it coincided with the first pitch. Well, we're gonna tell you about a great man, and it's a

loss for the Royals family. That's a great life. Nineties six years and Pat, just like his dad, went to KU, he also went to Bishop Ward High School. And there's a drive in a deep left center field. And there's never a great time to eulogize someone during the broadcast, So we apologize for the timing. But by this point, a drive into deep left by Castianos had become a full fledged me But he wasn't done using his bat to interrupt somber moments acquired by the Phillies in the offseason.

Castianos was in the box on the final Monday in May when NBC Sports Philadelphia announcer Tom McCarthy saw fit to deliver a Memorial Day tribute the Gold Chair, which will sit vacant here at Citizens Bank Park, honoring UH those who paid the ultimate sacrifice, and as if choreographed Castiano's rips on a deep left field, it is god. Three successive seasons, three earnest moments, each broken up by a nick Castiano's home run unlikely, comically unlikely, The question

just how unlikely? To try and grasp the improbability, we consulted sports statistician and NFL dor actor of Data and Analytics, Michael Lopez. He was kind enough to help us come up with an answer and to show his work. The first and most basic question, how often does Castianos hit the ball over the fence? In twenty one, he had combined forty eight home runs and eight twenty seven plate appearances. The home run he hit on Memorial Day was his

seventh home run of the two season. In his two hundred plate appearance, that's a home run five point four percent of the time he steps into the box. But that's too broad. What Lopez rightly calls grief announcements came early in the plate appearance, as baseball broadcasters stories usually do.

Over the last three seasons, through his Memorial Day blast, Castianos hit nineteen home runs on the first or second pitch of his plate appearance, which is to say that there's roughly a two percent chance that in any given plate appearance he would hit a home run in one of the first two pitches. Extrapolating that the likely hood that he would hit a home run in each of those three plate appearances, it's about one in a hundred

and twenty thousand. But the probability really plummets when we ask how likely was he to have three plate appearances in grief announcement settings. To answer this question, we first need some sense of frequency. How often to broadcasters depart from the game to offer the sorts of sombers soliloquies that Castiano's has an uncanny way of interrupting the sonic equivalent to photo bombing. We put this to Ted Robinson, a veteran of calling more than MLB games, mostly for

the Giants and Twins. But how often a broadcaster would deliver a somber monologue. His estimate once a month, and that's maybe, he says, there's a question of what do we want to impose on an audience honoring Memorial Day. Absolutely, maybe there's an unfortunate death of someone close to the team or an arrest you feel you have to acknowledge,

but weeks can go by between those that. As a guide, a monthly grief announcement would equate to ten such announcements over the last three seasons, accounting for the pandemic short and twenty campaign. Given that Castianos has played in most games over that period, one can assume that in a given game with a grief announcement, he'd have a one

in twenty chance of being a bad after that. Extrapolating that to the ten grief announcements, the likelihood of his being the bat or after three such announcements is one. Combining castianos Is early plate appearance home run rate with the odds of Castianos would be batting when the rare grief announcement was made. Rate Lopez makes the back of the envelope calculation. We'd say there's one in ten million chance that Castianos would follow three grief announcements with first

to pitch home runs. Those are literally powerball odds. Lopez points out that the odds improve if we consider the probability that any member of the population of Major league batters do what Castianos did. The odds also improved when we consider that the grief announcement could have been made

by broadcasters of either team. Then again, the odds become longer if we want to refine this and note that Castiano's not only hit home runs, but did so to left field each time, and though it wasn't a home run. Castiano's interrupted a fourth grief announcement. Earlier this season in spring training, Blue Jay's announcer Buck Martinez was awkwardly addressing the d u I arrest of Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker when Castianos laced a single to right field, fittingly

his first at bat with the Phillies. But little that's gonna drop for a basic Castianos reached out of propin in the right fair no sport revels and coincidence and numerology and statistical cork quite like baseball does. Pictured Joe Nicro's only career home run, it came off his brother Phil niekro a stand Musual's thirty six hundred and thirty hits eighteen fifteen came at home in eighteen fifteen, came

on the road. Mutual incidentally was born on November twenty one, nineteen twenty and Tiny Dinorah, Pennsylvania, population four thousand, five d eighty. That's the same unlikely birthplace as Ken Griffy Jr. Who was also born there on November twenty one, nineteen sixty nine. Castiano's speak, though, set the standard for improbability one in ten million for perspective, the odds of being struck by lightning in your lifetime. For the National Weather Service,

it's one in fifteen thousand, three hundred. The odds of getting bitten by a shark one in three point seven million. The odds of getting struck by a meteorite. The astronomer Allen Harris once haded it one in one point nine million. The odds of being elected president of the United States one in ten million, which is to say the awe and amusement we all have for Castianos, who's grief announcement triple Crown is well placed with that kind of timing.

When his baseball career ends, he might have a second career as a baseball announcer, the successor to Vince Scully. Thanks for listening, and a reminder to please rate and review our show. It helps people find us. Sports Illustrated Weekly is a production of Sports Illustrated and I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. And for more of Sports Illustrated It's best

stories and podcasts, visit SI dot com. This episode of Sports Illustrated Weekly was produced by Jessica Armoski, Jordan Rizzieri, and Isaac Lee, who was also our sound engineer. Our senior producer is Dan Bloom. Our acting senior producer is Harry Swartout. Our executive producers are Scott Browny and me John Gonzales. Our theme song is by Nolan Schneider, and if you've stuck around this song, we leave you with this. He might have a second career as a baseball announcer,

a successor to Fid Sculling. That's all I got. I mean, you'll you'll cut in the audio there. You don't need me saying right like yeah yeah good good h