The Gary Thornebot 3000 Opens Its Mouth Again.

I thought the GT3K only had two settings: OFF or HIGH. These usually work for hockey coverage, and are doubtful for use in other sports (Mom's Robot Factory used it as a prototype for the Gus Johnson model GJ-1 and added multi-sport flexibility.) Now, I find out that our GT3K also has another useful setting: PUT FOOT IN MOUTH.

Thorne is the play-by-play-bot for the Orioles, and during last night's telecast of the Red Sox-O's game, Curt Schilling's bloody sock from the 2004 World Series came up:

"The great story we were talking about the other night was that famous red stocking that he wore when they finally won, the blood on his stocking," Thorne said to broadcast partner Jim Palmer, the Hall of Fame pitcher, in a conversation that had begun with a discussion of Schilling's blog.

"Nah," Thorne said. "It was painted. Doug Mirabelli confessed up to it after. It was all for PR. Two-ball, two-strike count."

Palmer: "Yeah, that was the 2004 World Series [sic]." Thorne: "Yeah."

During a break two innings later, Thorne confirmed that's what he said, and that Mirabelli had told him so in a conversation "a couple of years ago."

"Go ask him [Mirabelli]," Thorne said.

Mirabelli was shocked, then angry, when relayed Thorne's comments.

"What? Are you kidding me? He's [expletive] lying. A straight lie," Mirabelli said. "I never said that. I know it was blood. Everybody knows it was blood."

Via Deadspin, I come to Baseball Musings, who reveals another instance of the GT3K's on-air bouts with stupid. Eventually, either ESPN or the MASN is going to have to do something about this sort of thing -- you can't have your announcers be consistently wrong about things like stats or even stuff like this. Harmless as the idea of Schilling painting the sock is in the scope of things, as far as sports go, to accuse someone of faking playing hurt for an ego boost is pretty damn ugly.