Nick Castellanos declined an exclusive ESPN story about his untimely home runs

Philadelphia Phillies star Nick Castellanos is responsible for one of the best running memes in all of sports in recent years due to his propensity to hit home runs after tragic moments around the world. But the meme, largely spread exclusively on social media, almost reached a much broader, national audience.

The meme, of course, came to life during former Cincinnati Reds broadcaster Thom Brennaman’s on-air apology after a homophobic slur, an apology punctuated by “a foray into left field” from Castellanos that ultimately ended in infamy.

Since then, his uncanny ability to eclipse big news stories has been a constant topic of conversation around the MLB, whether it was hitting a bullseye the day Joe Biden’s re-election campaign ended or ruining a somber moment on Memorial Day .

Castellanos hasn’t spoken much publicly about the meme. But on Friday, he did just that in a conversation with Alex Tantum, the founder of the MLB Fits site, but declined because the network wouldn’t give him editorial rights to the story.

“Sometimes certain things are viewed as tragedies. Sometimes things are seen as beautiful,” Castellanos said. “You know, whenever I hit a home run, it’s just how you look at it. It’s funny, ESPN actually reached out to me because they wanted to do an exclusive story on the man who hits home runs in all these inconvenient times. But it didn’t work out because they didn’t give me editorial rights to the story to make sure I liked it before it came out. They wouldn’t do that, so the opportunity was missed.”

Nick Castellanos weighs in on those who say tragedy strikes every time he reaches an HR department, saying he was approached by ESPN for a story about it 👀 pic.twitter.com/HVEiz5iJQ0

– MLBFITS (@_mlbfits) October 4, 2024

It would have been really fascinating to see what Castellanos would have said in an exclusive story about all the times he happened to hit a home run. Because the already extensive list continues to grow.

Who knows, maybe another network will potentially capitalize on ESPN’s failure and get the full story from Castellanos’ perspective. But for now, the meme will live on among MLB fans on social media.

(MLB fits on X)