ESPN’s Gomez gives his perspective on baboon autocorrect tweet

There’s no other way to describe social media when there’s a delay during a sporting event that a select group is tweeting along to. It gets, well, kind of weird.

With delays normally not having an estimated downtime, the blackout at Super Bowl XLVII was a good example of everyone collectively losing their mind while they impatiently waited for the game to come back.

The Arizona Diamondbacks’ loss to the Texas Rangers on Monday night wasn’t necessarily a large occasion, but it did feature a delay and a viral moment in that delay.

ESPN’s Pedro Gomez was one of the many reporters tweeting out that a monsoon storm in the Phoenix area caused a portion of the lights to go out at Chase Field, except his reporting told a different story.

@Rangers and @Dbacks delayed in downtown Phoenix because a baboon went through town and overloaded the grid, knocking some lights out.

— Pedro Gomez (@pedrogomezESPN) July 31, 2018

Gomez would tweet seven minutes later that this was an autocorrect on his phone from “haboob” to “baboon,” but Twitter was already in a full swing of reactionary tweets.

Gomez joined 98.7 FM Arizona’s Sports Station’s Bickley & Marotta to provide his perspective on the events. The ESPN reporter had actually typed “haboob” on his phone but did not double-check his tweet before clicking send.

“Initially, it’s kind of like ‘oh, jeez, that’s a bad one. Let me fix it,'” Gomez said. “But there was already so much on my timeline by that point because I put my phone down, I didn’t really look at it for the next 10 minutes, and everyone seemed to be having such a good time with it.”

Indeed, they were. Tweets from the D-backs, Phoenix Suns, Phoenix Zoo and more rolled in, and instead of being a poor sport, Gomez played along and retweeted his favorite replies.

“Let it ride at this point,” he said. “Just have fun with it.”

Gomez has enjoyed the ride, taking a trip to the Phoenix Zoo this week and having a direct messages folder full of meteorologists laughing along.

The joke is still very much a thing and will live on with Gomez for some time.

Love it, Henry.

— Pedro Gomez (@pedrogomezESPN) July 31, 2018

“Thank god it was only baboon,” Gomez said. “You never know.”

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