Go Fly A Kite
Friday, October 06, 2006
A reader (Erin) wrote in to notify me of something I missed during my drugged up haze on Monday Night. Part the way through the game, MNF came back from commercial showing the shots from the city like they always do. Well they took a close up of Philadelphia's City Hall and Tirico stated....
"Ben Franklin high above the city of Philadelphia"Well you would think that in one of the thousands of production meetings that someone could have told them that it's not Ben Franklin it's William Penn....you know like PENNsylvania. Good stuff....see you later with the baseball lowlights (Berman).
(Update: TJ from Gheorghe: The Blog has noted that Tirico has apologized. Wasn't really his fault, and he's not going to throw his network under the bus, but it's still pretty funny.)
4 Comments:
I knew that didn't sound right when I heard it. Whoops.
Didn't Philly have a long-time law that disallowed any buildings to stand taller than the William Penn statue? Obviously there are buildings that are much taller now.
I still think it's funny as well...I mean, does it matter Franklin or Penn, the good people of Philadelphia would've booed both of them...doesn't matter to those lunatics.
Yeah, they got rid of that law in the early 80's or so. Interestingly enough, no major team has won a title since the law was repealed. It's known locally as the Curse of Billy Penn. Fun little tidbit to go along with the misery.
Tirico has apologized (from benmaller.com)...
ESPN Monday Night Football announcer Mike Tirico has a brief message for the fans of Philadelphia. "I'm sorry for the William Penn-Ben Franklin reference," Tirico said earlier this week in a phone interview. When ESPN showed a panoramic view of William Penn's statue atop City Hall, Tirico said: "Ben Franklin, high atop the city of Philadelphia." While Tirico wouldn't say it, his production team at ESPN let him down. Somebody should have caught the error. Tirico won't point fingers.