It’s been a while since my last post, but after a busy summer I’m back to hopefully posting a couple times a week. It’s mid-August, the MLB regular season is starting to get exciting as the race for the playoffs begin and Buffalo Bills fans are already panicking over how bad they looked in their 1st pre-season game.
The main reason for this post is for me to vent over ESPN Sunday Night baseball. This weekend we all get to watch the nationally televised game of the week between the Atlanta Braves and NY Mets. That’s right, the late season playoff push is on and ESPN is still deciding to show the NY Mets in its feature game of the week. What’s even worse is that the commercials on ESPN radio promoting this game says something along the lines of “The Atlanta Braves are hoping to gain ground on the Washington Nationals for 1st place in the NL East (which is true) and the NY Mets are still in the hunt for the NL Wild Card.” Really? Still in the hunt for the NL wild card? They are currently 10 ½ games out of the 2nd wild card spot and haven’t done anything over the past month to resemble a team capable of making a playoff push. You might as well consider the Astros as still in the hunt for the wild card. Yet, we all get to watch this team play again on national television in what is considered the highlight MLB game of the week. These games are MLB’s version of Monday Night Football. It's primetime, it’s the only game on, and ESPN decides to showcase a team that is terrible.
After I finally stopped laughing over the scheduling of this game, I decided to look back at the teams ESPN has shown on Sunday Night baseball this year and the results are hilarious:
Team
Yankees 5
St, Louis 5
Boston 4
Texas 4
NY Mets 4
Angels 3
Braves 2
Nationals 2
Reds 2
Dodgers 2
Rays 1
Tigers 1
White Sox 1
Phillies 1
Brewers 1
Cubs 1
Marlins 1
Most of these teams I agree with. The Yankees, Cardinals, Angels and Rangers deserve it. The only reason the Red Sox have 4 appearances is because all of their appearances have been against the Yankees. That’s right, every series played so far between the Yankees and Red Sox has been on Sunday night baseball. Get ready, next week (8/19), Yankees play the Red Sox on Sunday Night baseball again. The Mets at 4 games is laughable, and the fact that the Cubs and Brewers had a game is flat out terrible. Some teams like the Nationals, White Sox, and Reds should get more appearances. I included the Marlins on here even though they played on a Wednesday night, however it was the Opening Night game of the season, and I considered that a marque game.
You may not be able to tell by looking at it, but 8 of the 10 Eastern Division teams are included on this list including EVERY NL East team. Only THREE Western Division teams have been on (east coast bias?). Three of the best team stories in baseball this year (Baltimore, Oakland, and Pittsburgh) have combined for ZERO appearances. There have also been ZERO San Francisco Giants games on. Apparently the Sunday Night baseball crew is on a travel budget as well because they have only traveled to the Western time zone a total of 2 times this year (both in LA for Dodgers games) against the Cardinals and of course, the Mets.
The games through May 27th are all scheduled at the beginning of the season, the games June 3rd – July 1st are all scheduled three weeks in advance. The July 8th Yankees/Boston and July 15th Cardinals/Reds games were also set at the beginning of the season. The games from July 22nd through the end of the season are scheduled two weeks in advance, in order to get the best series in primetime on Sunday Night. So somebody at ESPN two weeks ago thought the Mets would be a perfect fit for this night. Not the series between two playoff teams in the AL (Athletics vs White Sox or Texas vs Detroit), or the series in Arizona between the 1st place Nationals and the Diamondbacks, who at 57-55 are 3 games ahead of the Mets and in much better position to make a run at the 2nd wild card spot. What a joke this is.
Last week’s Brewers/Cardinals game and this week’s Braves/Mets game proves to me that ESPN just doesn’t really care about any good “stories” in baseball. Nobody in America can name more than 3 people on the Orioles, Athletics, and Pirates rosters, yet MLB and ESPN does nothing to help that. No sport does a worse job at promoting their stars like MLB (the NBA is the best at it in my opinion). The Pirates have a rising all-star in Andrew McCutchen (potential NL MVP this year), yet ESPN doesn’t want to showcase him. The Athletics, with their stud young pitching, Cuban sensation Yoenis Cespedes, and current standing as 1st place in the AL Wild Card don’t even get considered for the prime time game. Nobody believes in the Orioles, but they are still hanging around in the so-called “best division in baseball” (it’s the AL West this year in my opinion). Why not showcase them ONE time! These teams are all great stories and should get the respect they deserve. I don’t really know why it bothers me as much as it does. It’s annoying seeing the same teams every week play in the feature game of the week. Mix it up for once. Give the fans the stories that are making this season special.
Hopefully going forward ESPN will do a better job at scheduling this game, I know I’ll be paying attention.
