For Yankees beat writer Sweeny Murti, Dec. 7 is a day that will live in infamy, but for all the wrong reasons.
The WFAN reporter was featured in The 365 Stupidest Things Ever Said™ Page-A-Day Calendar for a supposedly insensitive joke he made referring to Pearl Harbor.
When asked if the American League East pennant race was over, Murti reportedly replied, "Over? It's not over. Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"
What the calendar's editors missed, however, was that Murti's response was a direct quote from the classic college film, "Animal House," starring John Belushi:
As Yahoo! Sports points out, the clip is constantly played on stadium JumboTrons to inspire teams to a late-game rally.
Murti understandably took issue with his place in the calendar, and its editors -- the brother-and-sister team of Ross and Kathryn Petras, who call themselves "America’s foremost experts in celebrity stupidity" on their Workman Publishing author page -- failed to recognize a reference to a well-known scene in an oft-quoted movie.
Fortunately for Murti, his fellow sportswriters jumped in to defend him on Twitter, while lampooning the comical dearth of pop-culture knowledge of the calendar's makers.
It's been a rough end to the year for Murti. First, radio host Mike Francesa fell asleep while interviewing him back in September, and now this.