If you need a little action and drama in an otherwise lifeless Tigers season look no further than the FOX Sports Detroit broadcast booth.
According to a report from The Athletic, play-by-play man Mario Impemba and analyst Rod Allen had what was described as a ‘physical altercation’ after Tuesday’s White Sox game that prompted FSD to replace the two for Wednesday night’s broadcast.
Via The Athletic:
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 attack.
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.
When contacted by The Athletic, Tigers general manager Al Avila didn’t deny the report and only stated that, “My only comment is this we are addressing an internal matter and we will not have any further comment at this time.” The two also had separate travel arrangements back to Detroit.
Furthermore the report (via Deadspin) credited the tension to a difference in broadcasting styles and personalities, which the two find harder to smooth over off air. However it’s been well known within inner circles that the two have had a problem with each other for a long time, to the point that FSD had to have a sit down with the two a few seasons ago to work out any personal differences they had so that any apparent tension wouldn’t show up on air. In fact it’s believed the addition of Kirk Gibson and at some point Jack Morris to the booth was done in direct relation to the tension hostilities between Mario and Rod. This tactic seemed to be working until tensions allegedly boiled over Tuesday.
Here’s a DSR excerpt from 2014 discussing just how bad it got between the two then:
Sources had informed me that the relationship between the two Tigers TV announcers was so awful that FSD executives had to bring the two in for a meeting to discuss their unhealthy behavior; the broadcast team was also shown images of famous duos that had broken up over personality issues.
Ya know, like Martin and Lewis and Simon and Garfunkel.
Based on what the DetroitSportsRag has learned over the past week, it would appear that not only has the off-microphone relationship failed to improve, those same FSD execs now believe that the overall chilliness between the pair has seeped into the actual broadcast.
In any sense though it’s also interesting that The Athletic referred to the altercation as an ‘attack’. It’ll also be interesting to see how FSD handles this going forward.
UPDATE: According to the Detroit News, Rod Allen allegedly had Mario Impemba in a ‘choke hold’ during their post-game fisticuffs in Chicago Tuesday night. Additionally the Detroit News reports that both Rod and Mario had what was described as a ‘heated’ exchange during the pregame that once again boiled over after the game was over.
Impemba and Allen had to be separated after they had an immediate postgame flare-up in which Allen had Impemba in a choke hold, a source familiar with the event told The Detroit News. The source requested anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the incident.
The nature of their tussle was not known, but the source said the two men had been in a heated pre-game exchange within the FSD booth at U.S. Cellular Field.
Their tensions continued into the post-game minutes when the, source said, it became physical and had to be broken up by an unidentified FSD employee.
UPDATE: This just keeps getting better and better:
https://twitter.com/JasonColthorp/status/1037812383933231105
