Jimmy Roberts has a well-earned reputation as one of the most respected broadcasters in sports, but even he has an on-air moment he’d like to forget.
The 16-time Emmy winner was this week’s guest on GOLF’s Subpar podcast, and he regaled co-hosts Colt Knost and Drew Stoltz with the story of his biggest broadcast blunder.
The moment occurred during Roberts’ coverage of the Deutsche Bank Championship in the early 2000s. At the time, Roberts said he was tasked with providing short updates during the tournament broadcast that touched on highlights from the wider world of sports.
In this particular instance, Roberts was preparing to introduce a clip that featured a home run from an MLB game.
“The information was kind of sketchy sometimes,” Roberts began. “And you really had to ad-lib, and you had to kind of just fly by the seat of your pants. But that’s OK, because that’s kind of what we do, right?
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“Anyway, so the note that I got, I was doing a baseball game or a highlight of a baseball game, and I don’t even remember who the player was. But I had my rundown in front of me, and I do my intro, and then they’re gonna roll some tape, and I know the first event is a baseball highlight. And I say, ‘We go to Cleveland where, you know, whomever the player’s name was, huge home run,’ and it’s underlined like three times.
“And there’s no more details. It might have said 4th inning, whatever, somebody’s pitching, right? So, we go to the highlights: ‘We go to Cleveland, 3rd inning. Don Smith on the hill, facing Jim Jones. And the pitch …’
“And I’m here to tell you, it’s the most massive home run I have ever seen. And the trick for doing this stuff is not to read, but it’s to watch the screen so that you can intuitively describe what you’re seeing, and that’s broadcasting, right? But I was caught totally unaware about how big this home run would be.
“So, I’m watching the screen, I say, ‘And the pitch, it —’ and I go, the following: ‘Holy sh!’
“And I only get as far as ‘sh.’ And I didn’t have the presence of mind at that point to kind of pivot and say something like, holy sugar! Holy shamole! Whatever, right? I was just so overwhelmed by the magnitude of this home run. I just left it at holy shh.”
Roberts said he was humiliated by the gaffe, but consoled himself by believing that few people would see it. That is, until he left the booth.
“I start walking back to the clubhouse and I run into Steve Stricker,” Roberts said. “And he says, ‘[Stricker’s wife] Nikki just texted me that you just said holy sh– on the air! Is that true?’
