Watching the Orioles stumble through the 2018 season has been hard for everyone to watch. Most of us can just tune out for our own sanity, but MASN play-by-play announcer Gary Throne has to watch ’em all, or at least the many, many games he broadcasts.
During last night’s matchup against the Seattle Mariners, Thorne may have let the mental drain of watching so much bad baseball slip through, when in the top of the 9th inning, following a well-turned double play to keep the game 5-3 Mariners, he said this:
Uh. What did Gary Thorne just say? ? pic.twitter.com/7TnOksU7fj
— Zachary Silver (@zachsilver) June 26, 2018
Yes, a double play to keep the deficit at two runs helped the Orioles stay “within shitting distance” of their opponent (hat-tip to MLB.com’s Zachary Silver for capturing video.) Since this is the 2018 Orioles we’re talking about, of course they failed to mount a comeback.
When this first aired, I thought I heard it wrong. Is “within shitting distance” even an expression? (Urban Dictionary offers this definition.) Did he mean to say striking distance? Shooting distance? Spitting distance? It really only sounds like “shitting distance.”
Thorne’s turns of phrase and gift of gab inspired a once-active Twitter account that posited he had a few drinks while calling games. Maybe now he’s giving voice to our collective frustration with this awful squad.
“shooting” distance