Unwritten ESPN Rule: Thou Shalt Not Take Shots at MLB Commish Bud Selig
By Jason McIntyre
Peter Pascarelli, a ESPN baseball guy who does podcasts and wears other hats at the network – researcher & helping out on Sunday Night baseball – learned a lesson the hard way this month – if you’re going to take shots at Bud Selig, be prepared for the repercussions. Pascarelli, who is well-liked by colleagues for his humor and brutal honesty, has been relinquished of his podcast duties for comments he made about the new statue of baseball commissioner Bud Selig outside of Miller Park in Milwaukee. Pascarelli’s comments from the February 11 podcast have been removed, but according to this quote and comments on message boards, poop, pigeons, and the statue were the gist of it. No big deal, right?
Wrong. You walk a fine line when talking shots at Bud Selig at ESPN – a year ago, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt was suspended for ripping Selig. (It was apparently deemed “personal” by the powers that be at ESPN.)
Pascarelli’s comments must have gotten back to Selig quickly because a day later, he appeared in a special podcast just to apologize.
“I wanted to clean up something I said on Thursday, which was not said in the right way, for which I apologize concerning the commissioner of baseball, Bud Selig … I made a throwaway line about the stateue that is being put up in his honor at Miller Park in Milwaukee … you know how I am – I’m not exactly the glibest person at times, sometimes my sense of humor is clumsy, and this was as clumsy as it gets. And for that, I really apologize both to Bud Selig and everybody at ESPN … to have something like this happen is not good on my part. It is completely my fault, no one else is responsible for it.”
Pascarelli then offered up a history lesson on Selig (as if he were reading it from wikipedia or something), and closed with: “I dismissed [the statue] and denigrated it in a stupid and sophomorish way and for that I apologize.” He then said the podcast would “be the same” but with “a little bit of a monitor on the babble.”
The podcast returned today … with just Eric Karabell and no sign (or mention) of Pascarelli.
While ESPN had no comment on Pascarelli, a source tells us his days on the podcast are over.