There is a video making the rounds on the Internet and it stars MASN broadcaster and former Orioles star Rick Dempsey, play-by-play man Gary Thorne and outfielder Jay Gibbons’ wife, Laura Giuliani. It seems innocent enough as Giuliani is being interviewed by Dempsey and Thorne about the Orioles Wives raising money for battered women for the House of Ruth in Baltimore.
The interview took place during last Saturday’s MASN telecast of the Orioles-Indians game.
The Orioles Wives raising money for domestic violence seems like a good thing … right?
The interview was going well until Rick Dempsey tried to be funny and suggested that Giuliani might try some domestic abuse on her husband Jay Gibbons to get him to hit better and even offered to “inflict some domestic abuse” himself on Jay if his hitting didn’t improve.
Dempsey’s attempt at humor by using domestic violence as a comic vehicle was in poor taste, at best, and insensitive.
I do not think that Rick Dempsey is a bad guy, or that he in anyway meant to take away from the good work being done by the Orioles Wives — they raised $10,000for the House of Ruth. He simply spoke before thinking and, in these days of YouTube and blogs, that can get you in deep trouble.
Just in the last month, we have seen Gary Thorne involved “Sock gate,” in-game reporter Amber Theoharis doing an interview with a fan who dropped an expletive on her. Both incidents became instant YouTube hits.
So Dempsey should have known better than to use the in-game public service interview as an opportunity for comic relief — oops, another YouTube moment for MASN.
Dempsey has issued a public apology and MASN is not expected to discipline him.
Having done live TV for over 25 years, I know there are times you wish you had an instant DVR so that you could rewind and make bad things go away.
In the case of sportscasters and their producers, with the Don Imus debacle still fresh in peoples minds, you really have to think before you speak. With Internet video bloggers just waiting to make your next gaff “today’s most viewed,” on YouTube or in Dempsey’s case, DailyMotion.com, what you say can and will be used against you in the court of public opinion.
One last thing, before the season I said that the MASN broadcasters — Thorne, Jim Palmer, Buck Martinez, Jim Durham, Theoharis and Dempsey on the Orioles side and Bob Carpenter, Don Sutton, Debbi Thomas, Johnny Holiday and Ray Knight on the Nats side — were, from top to bottom, the best line up of broadcasters in regional sports and I still feel that way.
I am just disappointed when they don’t always live up to quality I know they are capable of delivering.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this! on www.examiner.com.
