Dave Barnett
David Lane Barnett is an American play-by-play broadcaster who calls Big 12 baseball games on Fox Sports 1 and football and men's basketball for the University of North Texas. He was formerly an ESPN personality and a radio and television play-by-play announcer for the Texas Rangers.
Broadcast career
Before working for ESPN, Barnett served as the announcer for the Dallas Mavericks from 1981 to 1988, the San Antonio Spurs from 1988 to 1996, the Texas Rangers in 1990, and Southwest Conference football and basketball on Raycom Sports. In 2009, Barnett's contract with ESPN ended, allowing him to return to the Rangers, where he served as a radio broadcaster. On May 26, 2011, the Rangers announced that Barnett would be replacing John Rhadigan as the Rangers television play-by-play announcer.June 18, 2012 on-air incident
During a Rangers/Padres broadcast on Monday, June 18, 2012, from Petco Park in San Diego, Barnett suddenly began making nonsensical statements during the bottom of the eighth inning. Rangers pitching coach Mike Maddux was concluding a visit to the mound with pitcher Mike Adams when Barnett, without warning, said, "Go-ahead run is at fifth on what Adams is insisting on calling it a botched robbery. What actually happened was, his henchmen took a piece literally out of...." At that point, Barnett's voice trailed off. It sounded as though he was struggling to say the words "my" and then "his," but could not do so. There was initial speculation that the broadcast production crew had turned off his microphone, but they actually had not done so. For about twenty seconds, Barnett was silent, with viewers hearing only ambient noise from the ballpark. Then, just as suddenly as the oddity appeared, it was over. Barnett began speaking again as if nothing had happened, and he finished the game without further incident.The Rangers sent Barnett home to Denton, Texas for tests. For the rest of the series, Barnett's duties were assumed by Rangers radio announcer Steve Busby. One week after the incident, Barnett said that the preliminary medical diagnosis was that he had suffered "a complicated migraine." He also said that he had no memory of the incident, and that, after the game, he walked back to his hotel with his broadcasting partner, Tom Grieve, and went to bed. He further stated that he had no knowledge of what had happened until his wife called him the next morning and told him about the national attention that he was receiving. Barnett called the incident "surreal."