During the first game of a Wednesday doubleheader between the Cincinnati Reds and Kansas City Royals on August 19, 2020, play-by-play announcer Thom Brennaman was caught on a hot mic calling an unidentified city "one of the fag capitals of the world"1. Brennaman was broadcasting remotely from Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati due to COVID-19 travel restrictions, and the slur was picked up only on the MLB.tv out-of-market stream, not on the main Fox Sports Ohio cable feed6. According to David J. Halberstam, who later interviewed Brennaman, the city in question was San Francisco6.

The comment went viral on social media during the second game. By the top of the fifth inning, Brennaman's bosses pulled him off the broadcast4. Before handing duties to Jim Day, Brennaman was given the chance to apologize. As he launched into his statement, Reds right fielder Nick Castellanos stepped up to face Royals reliever Greg Holland2.

Brennaman began: "I made a comment earlier tonight that I guess went out over the air that I am deeply ashamed of. If I have hurt anyone out there, 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..."6

At that exact moment, Castellanos crushed a Holland fastball 410 feet over the left-center field fence2. Three decades of broadcasting instinct kicked in, and Brennaman seamlessly pivoted: "...as there's a drive into deep left field by Castellanos, it will be a home run, and so that'll make it a 4-0 ballgame"6. He then returned to his apology without missing a beat: "I don't know if I'm gonna be putting on this headset again."

Twitter user @allairematt posted the clip shortly after it aired, picking up over 3,000 retweets and 15,000 likes5. Adding to the absurdity, the ball landed directly next to a Planet Fitness billboard reading "judgement-free zone"2.

The copypasta broke out of baseball fandom faster than most sports memes. It became a standard response template on Twitter for mocking insincere public apologies, corporate non-statements, and political doublespeak2. The format works because it does two things at once: it's funny on its own as a non sequitur, and it implicitly compares whatever you're interrupting to Brennaman's situation2.

The meme crossed into real-world spaces. The bathroom wall transcription at Brown Truck Brewery in High Point, North Carolina, written out in full from memory (or from a phone), represents how deeply the copypasta embedded itself in internet-native culture9.

Professional sports broadcasting acknowledged the meme directly. Adam Amin's deliberate callback during a Fox Sports broadcast in London showed the phrase had become part of baseball's shared vocabulary11. Castellanos's own Instagram embrace in 2023 confirmed the player was in on the joke6.

Dr. Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist at Stanford who studies online influence, identified the copypasta as a form of group cultural critique: a shared tool for calling out perceived insincerity that signals in-group membership among those who recognize it2. The Ringer compared the dynamic to Rickrolling but noted the Castellanos copypasta carries an editorial point of view that Rick Astley links don't2.

Gambling culture picked up on the pattern too, with some bettors targeting the Castellanos home run prop every time major news breaks8.

The meme drew its staying power from two factors: the inherent comedy of the original clip and Nick Castellanos's uncanny habit of hitting home runs during somber moments.

The first documented instance of Castellanos going deep during something significant actually predates the Brennaman incident by nearly a decade. On May 1, 2011, a teenage Castellanos hit his first professional home run while playing for the single-A West Michigan Whitecaps. That was the same day Osama bin Laden was killed8. Nobody connected those dots until later, but in hindsight, the pattern was already forming.

After the Brennaman clip went mainstream in late 2020, fans started paying close attention to Castellanos's at-bats during notable events. On September 11, 2021, the anniversary of the terrorist attacks, Castellanos hit a home run8. A few months earlier, at Kauffman Stadium against the same Kansas City Royals, a broadcast attempted to eulogize George A. Gorman, a World War II veteran, and Castellanos drove one to left-center8. The coincidences kept stacking up.

When Castellanos signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in 2022, the meme followed him. His first spring training hit came as the opposing Blue Jays' broadcast discussed pitching coach Pete Walker's DUI8. The day after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the 2023 Oscars, Castellanos hit his first Phillies home run in spring training8. On Memorial Day 2022, Phillies announcer Tom McCarthy barely got the words "ultimate sacrifice" out of his mouth before Castellanos hit a solo shot8.

One notable exception to the pattern: the death of Queen Elizabeth II on September 8, 2022. Castellanos was on the injured list from September 2 to September 26 and missed the team's tribute. Fans made fake edits of Castellanos homering during the memorial anyway, and some were convincing enough that people believed they were real8.

The meme's physical-world presence grew too. At Brown Truck Brewery in High Point, North Carolina, someone wrote out the entire Brennaman apology in Sharpie on a shelf above a urinal9. The discovery prompted a local writer to muse about the line between internet culture and real life, noting that "some guy wrote 'LAME' right in the middle of that paragraph. He didn't understand the meme. But maybe he's the one who gets it"9.

Both Nick and Jessica Castellanos acknowledged the joke publicly. In 2021, Jessica posted on Twitter asking people to stop4. Nick leaned into it with a February 2023 Instagram post showing him practicing his swing, captioned "And there's a deep drive... Phillies '23"6. The plea and the embrace existed side by side.

Professional broadcasters started referencing the meme on air. On June 8, 2024, Fox Sports announcer Adam Amin called a Castellanos home run in London with the words "There's a deep drive to left field in London," a deliberate nod to Brennaman's original call11. When the CW announced on July 21, 2024, that Brennaman would return to broadcasting as the lead commentator for CW Football Saturday, Castellanos hit a home run that same day8. The commentator of that game repeated Brennaman's famous phrase6.

During the 2023 MLB postseason, Castellanos tied for the playoffs lead with four home runs and became the first player in postseason history to hit two home runs in back-to-back games, keeping the meme in constant circulation on social media7. By 2024, some fans were placing bets on Castellanos home run props whenever major news broke8.

Brennaman himself addressed the meme's legacy in a November 2021 podcast, saying: "But for people to criticize a sincere apology... That's when you know that there is a lot wrong with a lot of people"6. He spent the intervening years working with LGBTQ outreach groups including the Children's Home of Northern Kentucky and PFLAG6. He called Roberto Clemente League games in Puerto Rico and high school sports in Cincinnati before his 2024 CW return11. During his first CW football broadcast ahead of a Boston College vs. Syracuse game, Brennaman alluded to the incident while discussing both teams' quarterbacks, placing emphasis on the surname of an unrelated player named Castellanos6.