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Seventy years ago today, the first major league baseball game was televised. Famed sportscaster Red Barber was behind the mic, and the Reds and Dodgers ended up splitting a double header.

As much as anybody who appears on TV, the guys in a baseball broadcast booth have the potential to really screw up. They're live, without a script or a prompter, and have no idea what's going to happen next. To add to the pitfalls, baseball's slow pace allows plenty of time for the mind and the mouth to wander into troublesome places.

So, in honor of the anniversary of this difficult vocation, we've compiled some of the funniest and most controversial broadcasting blunders in baseball history.

Harry Caray
After suffering a stroke in 1987, legendary Chicago Cubs broadcaster Harry Caray became somewhat of gaffe machine, often incorrectly reporting the details of the game and butchering the names of even the Cubs' players. (His continued love for Budweiser wasn't helping.) He was also no good at birth announcements, as evidenced by this incestuous blunder he made at the expense of journeymen outfielder Scott Bullet:

"Scott Bullett, as he takes left field, is getting congratulations from everybody. He and his daughter are parents now of a new baby."


Jerry Coleman
You may remember a faux-blooper from the baseball scene in the "Naked Gun," in which an outfielder's head pops off after he runs into the wall. For obvious reasons, this has never happened in real life, but the terrifying scenario did once unfold in the hysterical prattle of Padres' play-by-play man Jerry Coleman, who decapitated Dave Winfield with this call:

"Winfield goes back to the wall. He hits his head on the wall, and it rolls off! It's rolling all the way back to second base! This is a terrible thing for the Padres!"


Bert Blyleven
Here's a video of Blyleven demonstrating the perils of live television. (NSFW sound)


Steve Lyons
The man they call "Psycho" was a color commentator for Fox until he was marred by a series of awkward and ethnically insensitive gaffes, topped off by an exchange with Lou Piniella during the 2006 ACLS in which Lyons responded to Piniella's use of a Spanish phrase by saying:

"I still can't find my wallet. I don't understand him, and I don't want to sit close to him now."


Fox deemed these comments a slur against Hispanics and immediately suspended and then fired Lyons, who had been warned about making any more ethnic jokes.

Byrum Saam
Maybe Lyons's problem was he insulted the wrong ethnic group or did his insulting in the wrong era, as longtime Philadelphia Phillies play-by-play man Byrum Saam faced no sanction at all in 1969 after he branded the fans in Montreal with this doozy of a backhanded compliment:

"Most people up here speak French. However, they are nice people."


Mudcat Grant
Grant, an ex-ballplayer who did color commentary for the Cleveland Indians during the '70s, had an extremely heavy southern accent, which at times made him hard to understand. But perhaps his most famous gaffe came when his words were offered up all too clearly. He was reading a letter from the "Kuntz sisters" and, well, you can imagine what he said. His stunned play-by-play partner corrected his pronunciation, causing Grant to respond:

"Maybe you be right. Well anyway, these two c**ts be writing us ... "


John Mayer
Sure we were able to find a few blunders in 70 years of televised baseball. But for the most part the boys in the booth do a pretty good job. And it's not an easy one. Just ask singer John Mayer, who found this out when he put on his best play-by-play voice and tried his hand at calling a game.

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