My Bad

 

I make mistakes.

That's the headline. Maybe that's all I need to write.

I've committed blunders that have brought me ridicule and scorn and interweb grief.

I've had players doing the wrong things or have said the wrong names. Years ago, I kept saying a game was against Westhill when, in fact, it was Wilton. I corrected it and carried on but I still remember it. More recently, I was doing a Manhattan College baseball game and I know I said ManhattanVILLE a few times.

Tonight, my eyes betrayed me. The quarterback for Deerfield Academy is named Cole Geer. For reasons only my eyes and brain can explain, I called him Greer for roughly half of the game.

But, here's the thing. A kind soul on Twitter did exactly what I've begged people to do forever. Instead of yelling at us or being condescending or embarrassing us, just nudge us.

Tracey Kelusky, thank you.

"Rob great call of the football game. Deerfield QB Is GEER. NO R."

Believe me, I'm embarrassed enough. I acknowledged it and apologized. To her profound credit, she told me no apology was necessary. That grace and kindness allowed me a shred of my dignity, I suppose.

I was ready but I goofed. I owned it. It makes for a blog post. We move on.

We all make mistakes and that's sometimes easy to forget. Given I hold myself to a very high standard, mistakes drive me nuts. Perhaps through the wisdom of time, I've learned to go a little easier on myself. While it's eating me up, it's not gnawing at me as badly as it would have at one time.

I tightened up and called the rest of the game, not letting it impact the broadcast.

And that's a good thing because it was a very good game, won by Deerfield on a -- you guessed it -- Cole Geer one-year touchdown with under a half-minute to play.

Brunswick tried to score on lateral play but it was to no avail. After numerous laterals, the ball was fumbled and, in the chaos, it appeared Deerfield -- the Big Green -- scored as time expired.

So, despite the scoreboard saying 20-17, the actual final was 26-17. That was not confirmed as we wrapped up the broadcast so I said both scores. I just noticed Dave Fierro of Greenwich Sports Beat reported the same thing.

Thanks to the rain, I have to shake off any errors and move on to tomorrow. I was asked to go call the Msgr Farrell/Iona Prep game in New Rochelle today but declined because it would cut so close to the Brunswick game. But tomorrow I'm heading back to White Plains for Cardinal Hayes against Archbishop Stepinac. Game time is 2:00 p.m.

That will take me away from a full day of watching NFL football and the Yankees' last game of the year. However, it will allow me to call a high school football game on Sunday, and that's sort of a rarity.

Plus, thanks to whoever decided to postpone Greenwich/Danbury on Friday night, I'll have a third straight day of football broadcasts on Monday with the Cardinals and Hatters on WGCH at 6:00 p.m. There might be some kind of new sponsor for a post-game interview. I vaguely remember receiving a text message or 200.

So, if you're keeping score, I'm calling the Cardinals (Cardinal Hayes) and the Cardinals (Greenwich) in back-to-back broadcasts.

I'm also calling Monday Night Football.

Joe Buck and Troy Aikman but, let's face it, Chris Erway and I 
would look just as good rocking those.

I only wish Chris Erway and I had those old ABC gold jackets. We'd look pretty good, let me tell you.

Oh, and if I wasn't clear, this will be our second trip to Danbury because guess where we were when we found out Friday's game was postponed? We were already in Danbury.

We'll try it again.

And hope for no errors.

Don Meredith, Howard Cosell, Frank Gifford.