Fox played the wrong ‘Baby Shark,’ and Nationals fans aren’t pleased

“Baby Shark” was a worldwide sensation long before Washington Nationals outfielder Gerardo Parra started using it as his walk-up song earlier this summer.
The Pinkfong! version of the campfire ditty has racked up more than 3.7 billion views on YouTube over three years, delighting toddlers and annoying parents who have yet to figure out a way to get all those “doo doo doos” out of their heads.
Everybody knows that version of that song — with the possible exception of Fox Sports, which inexplicably played a different version Wednesday night during the Nationals’ 12-3 rout of the Houston Astros in Game 2 of the World Series.
am i losing my mind? is this some kind of baby shark knockoff? pic.twitter.com/Qo1EJ3XNUP
— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 24, 2019
The Pinkfong! version is fun and upbeat, an unlikely-yet-perfect anthem for a Nationals team that was 12 games below .500 in May and is now two wins away from its first World Series championship.
Fox played the Super Simple Songs version, which is none of those things. As the Wall Street Journal’s Jason Gay brilliantly observed, that rendition sounds as if it was “recorded by Art Garfunkel at a Chuck E. Cheese.”
Fans were not pleased.
Fox dissing Baby Shark song with some awful second rate version and I will not stand for it!
— Nats Park Sean (@NatsParkSean) October 24, 2019
@FOXSports You guys are doofuses! No idea how you picked the wrong Baby Shark song. Just google & you’d see one version has like a billion hits. IDK maybe that’s the right one? Did you assign a Fox News fact checker to it? Never mind you don’t have those #WorldSeries #Nats
— Rage Queen (@RageQueen1) October 24, 2019
Get this BS version of baby shark off the air immediately fox and your whole broadcast team should be fired for that #BushLeague
— Michael Bertram (@mbertram10) October 24, 2019
These announcers on FOX can’t even play the right version of baby shark to tell the most basic story of a team they knew nothing about before last night. 🙄 Not that I’m bitter. @Nationals #FINISHTHEFIGHT
— Hayley Morton Pettey (@hayleympettey) October 24, 2019
If you thought Joe Buck and @FOXSports couldn’t make this World Series any worse, they had to go and mess up baby shark. I don’t know wtf they just played in the top of the 9th but that was NOT BABY SHARK. #fakenews
— Sam Perrone (@perrone_sam) October 24, 2019
Fox play-by-play announcer Joe Buck told the Washington Post before the Series: "“I have listened to the ... out of that song for the last year. I have 1½-year-old twin boys. I didn’t need Gerardo Parra to introduce me to ‘Baby Shark.’”
Yet as he discussed the cultural phenomenon during Wednesday’s broadcast, Buck declared, “There it is,” when the bizzarro version started playing.
I doubt you have ever heard the baby shark song in your home. I think you made the whole think up. you even have kids? How could you play the wrong shark song on national television? As you have been fawning over the Astros the Nationals have been winning games. What rly matters
— tom nwyn (@NwynTom) October 24, 2019
A representative from Fox Sports told The Times that there’s really no reason that particular recording was chosen for the broadcast and added that the Pinkfong version is available should the network decide to use it later in the Series.
Anything more wild than a ballpark full of adults and children alike singing "Baby Shark?" pic.twitter.com/buK6yJQfKj
— Cut4 (@Cut4) October 16, 2019
Go beyond the scoreboard
Get the latest on L.A.'s teams in the daily Sports Report newsletter.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.