It wasn’t even close. At all.
ESPN baseball analyst Tim Kurkjian was thoroughly embarrassed Monday night after deciding against his better judgment to participate in the Milwaukee Brewers Sausage Race (click here for video).
Sausage race + Tim Kurkjian = awesome! @Kurkjian_ESPN getting ready for tonight on ESPN2, 8 ET. #SausageRaceKurkjian pic.twitter.com/AIYIiPRgoh
— Baseball Tonight (@BBTN) June 23, 2014
Kurkjian spent the better part of an afternoon stretching and running stairs at Miller Park in preparation for the race. He even interviewed legendary Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker before the game for some friendly advice.
“Stupidly, I agreed to run in the sausage race tonight. Do you have any advice for me?” Kurkjian asked Uecker. “Is this the end of my career as a journalist?”
“I think this is the start of something really big,” Uecker said. “I think you got a road show coming up. … What could we call you? ‘Slim Tim and His Sausage-Casing Friends’? … What took you so long?”
Uecker‘s optimism was all for naught, however. Like a thoroughbred smashing its shoulders leaving the starting gate, Kurkjian found himself out of the race from the very beginning.
Busy chatting with the crowd, the ESPN analyst was facing the wrong direction when the signal to run came down—a dire setback for anyone running in a giant hot dog costume.
ESPN sportscaster Sean McDonough was on hand to call the race and took no prisoners as his colleague struggled about in the hot dog outfit.
“Tim…sorta doesn’t know what to do,” McDonough said. “John Kruk said he [Kurkjian] is really one of those mini cocktail wieners, based on his size.”
When the dust settled, Kurkjian finished somewhere in the neighborhood of 24 lengths behind the victor.
There are so many factors that contributed to Kurkjian‘s sweaty implosion at Miller Park that it’s difficult to decide where to begin the autopsy. Joe Lucia of Awful Announcing says Kurkjian‘s decision to wear pants was a red-flag indicator that this endeavor would only end badly.
“I spoke with Matt Lindner, a Chicago-based writer friend of mine who actually worked as a Racing Sausage during his time with the Brewers,” Lucia writes. “Lindner opined that Kurkjian‘s choice of slacks was ‘ill-advised at best,’ and that many of the runners in the race dress like ‘they’re going to gym class.'”
You’ve got to stay nimbly bimbly, Tim. You don’t see Usain Bolt running the hundred meters in Zubaz (though we’d like to).
With that said, Kurkjian owes his viewers a redemption tour. This time next year, he needs to walk back onto that field wearing shorts and facing the starting line.
Do it for the game, Slim Tim. Do it for journalism.
#TeamSlimTim
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