The Toronto Blue Jays defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers at home Tuesday night to even up the World Series at two games apiece.
But in certain corners of social media, the most amusing commentary had to do not with the Jays’ underdog win but with Sydney Sweeney’s involvement in Fox’s broadcast.
Sydney was on hand for the game — alongside boxer Christy Martin, whom she portrays in an upcoming biopic — and she also pre-recorded an intro segment that really didn’t sit well with some viewers.
Sydney Sweeney World Series segment falls flat
If you’re a sports fan, you’re familiar with these segments ahead of big games:
Some celebrity, usually with ties to one of the two teams (and it’s not tough to find celebs with ties to LA!), will get viewers hyped up, as though half the folks watching haven’t already put up the rent money on FanDuel.
Sydney has a new sports movie to promote (hence the many cutaway shots to her seated next to Christy), so she must have seemed a natural fit.
Unfortunately, some very outspoken baseball fans disagreed.
“Why not roll out the red carpet and place their names exactly where they belong? High above the streets in shining lights,” Sydney said in her intro
“Winning, real winning, isn’t polished. It’s bruised, it’s messy, it’s imperfect, it’s everything you can’t fake. It’s earned, it’s beautiful all on its own,” she continued as clips of the teams played out onscreen,” she continued, adding:
“Let’s just save the Hollywood for the ending. Welcome to Game Four of the World Series on Fox.”
Okay, it’s a little corny, but these things usually are. Which is why it’s so weird that viewers basically reacted by hurling rotten produce at their screens:
Baseball fans say Sydney struck out with ‘creepy a-s’ intro
“Why is Sydney Sweeney narrating the World Series game 4 intro?” one person wrote on X, according to Page Six.
“Sydney Sweeney ad for the World Series? Who invited you?” asked another.
“Why tf is Sydney Sweeney doing the World Series intro? That was a creepy a$$ tone of voice too,” a third offered.
“Sydney Sweeney monologue to open up Game 4 of the World Series in Los Angeles, that’s certainly a choice,” a fourth chimed in.
You get the idea. Sydney’s intro was exactly a grand slam — but since few critics offered specifics, it’s not clear exactly what the problem was.
And at the end of the day, hopefully we can all agree that if you were more irritated by Sydney than you were excited about catching Shohei Ohtani’s World Series pitching debut, you might be watching baseball for the wrong reasons.