TheAthletic- When Mickey York and Craig Monroe threw to the booth during Wednesday night’s broadcast of Fox Sports Detroit’s “Tigers Live” pregame show, an unexpected duo appeared on screen — that of Matt Shepard and Kirk Gibson.
Conspicuously absent from the show was the regular tandem of play-by-play announcer Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen. Multiple sources told The Athletic that neither Impemba nor Allen were part of Wednesday’s broadcast due to a physical altercation between the two television personalities following Tuesday’s game in Chicago against the White Sox. It is not immediately clear what prompted the incident. According to the accounts of those sources, there has been simmering tension between both Impemba and Allen and the clash of personalities ultimately boiled over on Tuesday night. Both Shepard and Gibson had to be brought in to Chicago at last-minute’s notice, according to at least one source. Another source said that Impemba’s and Allen’s travel arrangements back to Detroit were booked separately to avoid further issues. --------- Not for nothing, but as much as this a hilarious story that paints quite the preposterous picture, isn't it also an indication that playing nice-nice while sharing otherwise dead airwaves with the same person, for hours on end, almost every damn day for six months out of the year can be inherently frustrating at times? Like, which of the following is more surprising... That, after 15 years of working together, the daily grind of another dreary season in Detroit had Mario Impemba and Rod Allen ready to rip each other's voice boxes out over qualities that soon became quibbles and quirks? Or that this is the first we're hearing of two people who work in the closest of quarters and need to censor their true feelings while on job finally going ahead and pummeling each other off of it? I'm inclined to say it's the latter. After all, broadcasting duos aren't made up of lifelong friends with pre-existing chemistry, and - even if they were - that would probably only increase the likelihood of heated interactions and altercations that came to pass due to spending too much time with someone you know far too well. I think I just convinced myself that every pair of announcers should use All-Star weekend to step in the ring and beat the (inconsistent pause) brakes off one another for the continued sanity of the team...and the peace of mind of the team that employs the team. I tend to think that enough feigned pleasantries will always lead to thrown punches, but that's just the opinion of someone that was never cut out for the business of family friend bullshitting.
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