It’s the end of a long Major League Baseball season. And maybe that explains what happened on Wednesday night in Chicago with Karl Ravech calling the Cubs-Mets game, particularly when it came to correctly identifying Michael Busch.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, Busch launched his 31st home run of the season, giving the Cubs a 10-2 lead in the game. However, Ravech called him “Matthew Busch.”
Broadcast partner Eduardo Pérez did Ravech one better by calling Busch “Matthew Boyd,” who was the starting pitcher in the game for the Cubs.
Incredibly (and hilariously), Ravech then corrected Pérez for getting Busch’s name wrong after he had done the exact same thing, somehow not realizing his own mistake in the first place.
It would be one thing if a mistake like that were isolated. But Cubs fans were exasperated that Karl Ravech was calling Michael Busch “Matthew” the entire night with the confusion happening on multiple occasions.
Just how bad was it? After the Michael Busch home run, Ravech addressed the constant mix-ups, although it was Pérez that actually offered the apology. Ravech invoked Matt Shaw, Matthew Boyd, and “Matthew” Busch and took the blame for leading his broadcast partner down the wrong path.
It’s incredibly rare for an announcer to be forced to apologize during a nationally televised game for repeatedly getting a player’s name wrong, but that’s exactly what happened here. At least Ravech didn’t also reference Shaw attending the Charlie Kirk memorial service like Gary Cohen did, or this could have all gone haywire.
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