Thom Brennaman is Doing Nick Castellanos Jokes Now

Thom Brennaman may never put on the same headset he used to call all those Cincinnati Reds games through the years, but the veteran announcer will have access to another one with Chatterbox Sports. In a video posted Wednesday afternoon, company president Trace Fowler introduced the new hire. Brennaman lost both of his higher-profile gigs after the was caught using a homophobic slur during a commercial break last August. His on-air apology was famously interrupted by a deep drive to left by Nick Castellanos. The Chatterbox role will put him on the high school sports beat.

"Over the past two months, I have done a lot of research to see what kind of person he is; was the comment that he made, is that who he is, or is it just a mistake like all of us have made at some point?" Fowler said. "And the conclusion that I’ve come up with, quite frankly, is that he’s a great person who made a mistake that I know he’s deeply regretful for.

“And we’re excited to allow him another opportunity to put a headset on again. And the biggest thing that I hope people take away from this is that we are not downplaying what was said, what people feel from that. More importantly, in my opinion, I hope we don’t live in a society where we’re essentially going to try to, I don’t want to use the word ‘cancel,’ but we’re not going to end people’s careers and think that’s going to solve any kind of problem.”

The biggest reveal comes at the end of the video when Brennaman makes his own Castellanos joke, which is either slightly funny or deeply cringeworthy depending on one's personal perspective. Or, a third option is that you simply couldn't care less about it. Always in play.

I did not personally have him trying to get in on the fun considering the particulars of the situation on my Bingo card, but here we are. Honestly, that's probably on me. Should have seen it coming.