Liberal columnist and lifelong Red Sox fan Mike Barnicle got busted by his colleague Joe Scarborough Tuesday afternoon for watching the Red Sox play their season opener on the road in Cleveland via his smartphone while on set. Barnicle apparently struggled to turn off the volume.
"Would you help us turn it off?! He's got MLB.com on," Scarborough complained. "He's got the Red Sox-Indians game on under the desk. And he doesn't know how to turn off the volume," panelist Willie Geist explained. While a curious Mika Brzezinski asked "What's the score?", Scarborough chided Barnicle for watching "preseason" baseball, correcting himself moments later after his panelists noted that, yes, the regular season was now underway:
SCARBOROUGH: This is, this is sad and pathetic. You know, I don't know if you know this or not, Mike, bit's preseason. It's, it's, it's, yeah, I mean it's –
GEIST: This is the real deal.
EUGENE ROBINSON, Washington Post columnist: This is the real deal, yeah.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Wow. You are that [unintelligible].
SCARBOROUGH: Oh, wait, no, it's not! Oh, duh!
ROBINSON: It's opening day.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh, that's right! Opening Day, look at me being stupid. So there's a reason [Barnicle was watching].