Closed captioning is a fantastic service. And often it’s hilariously wrong.
For many baseball fans, closed captioning is an essential part of the viewing experience. The subtitles help fill in baseball’s ample gaps when announcers banter, analyze plays, and tell stories. It’s great for our deaf or hard-of-hearing friends, or those who simply like to watch with no sound.
Closed captioning is typically done through a mix of human input and speech-to-text software. It’s a difficult job — game action can be quick and confusing, and there are more than a few mush-mouthed announcers with less-than-perfect diction — but they get it right most of the time.
But, when they get it wrong, the results can be unintentionally spectacular:
The MLB Closed Captioning Twitter account appeared in August to lovingly celebrate some of the more hilarious or mystifying CC mishaps, and we’ve stumbled across a few of our own while using MLB’s great new Film Room feature.
Nothing wreaks havoc on closed captioning quite like names, so we thought we’d present to you five of the silliest Tigers name errors we’ve found. Hit the jump to see who they are.
NOTE: You’ll need to turn on subtitles for this post to make any sense. If you don’t know how, here’s a guide for iPhone, Android, and just about everything.