Phillies slugger Nick Castellanos interrupts yet another broadcast; Ray Didinger offers his final goodbye

Leave it to Phillies slugger Nick Castellanos to interrupt another broadcast.

In the second inning of Monday’s extra-innings loss to the San Francisco Giants, Castellanos belted a solo home run to put the Phillies up 1-0. But the home run came just as NBC Sports Philadelphia announcer Tom McCarthy was discussing the importance of a gold chair at the stadium on Memorial Day.

“The gold chair, which will sit vacant here at Citizens Bank Park, honoring those who paid the ultimate sacrifice,” McCarthy said as the bat cracked. “Castellanos rips one to deep left field. It is … gone! Solo home run for Castellanos!”

By my count, it’s the fourth time Castellanos has interrupted a broadcaster trying to convey a serious moment.

His most famous interruption came in 2020, while playing for the Cincinnati Reds. Former Reds and Fox Sports play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman was attempting to apologize for using an antigay slur earlier in the game. Then Castellanos knocked out a solo home run.

“I can’t tell you how much I say from the bottom of my heart I’m so very, very sorry. I pride myself and think of myself as a man of faith … As there’s a drive into deep left field by Castellanos. It will be a home run,” Brennaman said. “And that will make it a 4-0 game.”

Last season, while still with the Reds, Castellanos belted a home run against the Royals just as the Kansas City play-by-play announcer Ryan Lefebvre was eulogizing World War II veteran George Gorman, the father of longtime team staffer Pat Gorman, who had died at the age of 96.

“There’s never a great time to eulogize someone during the broadcast,” Lefebvre said. “So we apologize for the timing.”

And in March during spring training, Castellanos nabbed his first hit in a Phillies’ jersey against the Blue Jays in the middle of a discussion about Toronto pitching coach Pete Walker and his apology for a DUI arrest.

Hopefully, the home run comes at a good time for Castellanos, who had a family member say it didn’t look like he was having any fun on the slumping Phillies, according to my colleague Alex Coffey. The Phillies are seven games below .500 for the first time since the end of the 2017 season, 11.5 games back from the New York Mets, and have lost seven of their last 10 games.

“The largest deficit a Phillies team has overcome to win a division was 8½ games in 2007,” longtime MLB columnist Ken Rosenthal helpfully pointed out for The Athletic.

» READ MORE: The Phillies can still make a wild-card run with their bats and their starters

After the fallout over a leaked audio recording of Rachel Nichols complaining about losing her hosting job to her former colleague Maria Taylor, ESPN revamped its NBA studio programming this season to feature Get Up! host Mike Greenberg, First Take host and former Inquirer columnist Stephen A. Smith, Pardon the Interruption co-host Michael Wilbon, and former NBA player turned analyst Jalen Rose.

NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson was also touted as part of that mix, one reason Wilbon said he agreed to join the new pregame and halftime show. “I did this largely because Magic said let’s get the band back together,” Wilbon joked in an interview with the Inquirer back in December.

The only problem? Johnson has appeared on ESPN’s NBA pregame show NBA Countdown just once this season. Dave Roberts, the head of NBA and studio production for the network, told the New York Post’s Andrew Marchand that Johnson’s absence was due to “unexpected scheduling conflicts.”

Apparently, those conflicts have been sorted out. A couple days after Marchand’s column was published, Johnson took to Twitter to announce he’ll rejoin NBA Countdown on Thursday for Game 1 of the NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics.