This Week in Baseball 5/14 - 5/20

[Bored 0]

ESPN & FOX Games to Poison Our Youth

 

MONDAY

Cubs (Jason Marquis) at Mets (Tom Glavine), 7:00/4:00 PM, ESPN

 

WEDNESDAY

Tigers (Mike Maroth) at Red Sox (Julian Tavarez), 7:00/4:00 PM, ESPN

 

SATURDAY

Yankees at Mets, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX

White Sox at Cubs, 3:55/12:55 PM, FOX

 

SUNDAY

Yankees at Mets, 8:00/5:00 PM, ESPN

[Guest Smues]

Oh goodie Yankees Mets. I'll put the over/under at the number of times Morgan and Miller say the name Roger Clemens during the game despite the fact he won't even be on the team yet at 35.

[KingPK 0]

Aside from the national game on Wednesday, Sox/Tigers has some pretty good pitching matchups:

 

MON: Robertson vs. Dice-K

TUE: Verlander vs. Wakefield

[Craig Th 0]

I was supposed to go to the Tuesday game, but I can't make it. I'm a bit annoyed.

[Vern Gagne 0]

Why aren't the Royals and Cardinals playing? The games are at least competive, considering who is playing.

[CanadianChris 0]

Interleague ALREADY? It seems to get earlier and earlier every year.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

No, it usually starts around mid-May usually.

[The Man in Blak 0]

Barry Bonds, David Ortiz, Vladimir Guerrero... There are some major league hitters you just can't let beat you in the late innings of a close game. Chief among them all, however, is almost certainly Jack Cust. Cust would have gotten his chance years ago, but every GM in baseball knew that to use him was to risk shaking the very foundation of the game. That Cust has had to wait until 28 for regular playing time will probably prevent him from reaching 1,000 career homers, which is a shame. Still, 500 is very much in reach, perhaps by the end of the season.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

Jack Cust had 1 AB for the Os, they got him for Chris Richard lol..the knock on Cust was that he strikes out a lot..I think the Os wish they had him back..

 

Os have 3 games with the Jays and 3 games with the Nats..its great that they'll catch the nats on their little hot streak probably..lol

[Boon 0]

Aside from the national game on Wednesday, Sox/Tigers has some pretty good pitching matchups:

 

MON: Robertson vs. Dice-K

TUE: Verlander vs. Wakefield

I'll be sitting front row at that one.

[CanadianChris 0]

In the "WTF?!?" department:

 

In an effort to boost sagging ratings for the World Series, Major League Baseball will announce Monday that the 2007 Fall Classic will start on Wednesday instead of Saturday, USA Today reported.

 

A Wednesday start will allow baseball to avoid playing on Friday, which is TV's second-least watched night after Saturday. If the Series goes to a Game 5, it also would go head-to-head with ESPN's Monday Night Football.

 

According to USA Today, Game 1 will be scheduled for Wednesday Oct. 24. If the Series goes to a Game 7, it will be played on Nov. 1, the first time baseball has scheduled a World Series game in the month of November.

 

It won't be the first time a Series game has been played in November, however, as the Yankees and Diamondbacks played into November 2001 after the season was delayed after the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 of that year.

 

MLB president Bob DuPuy told USA Today that baseball considered starting the World Series on a Tuesday, but that would mean a Series game would be played on a Friday, and avoiding a Friday night game was a priority for the league.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2869747

 

I seriously don't get how they think moving the start of the World Series is going to get more people to watch it. Here's a thought -- try scheduling the games so most of them end before midnight!

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

Allow me to channel Czech here, "Or fix it so that the Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers or Cardinals are in the World Series, because no one cares about the other teams bah gawd!"

[Guest Smues]

What the fuck? Umm, I don't get why they say this avoids a Friday game, since they never schedule Friday games. It's been Sat/Sun for games 1,2, then tue/wed/thur for 3,4,5, then sat/sun for 6,7. Depending where this year's games are played I was considering splurging and getting tickets to game 1, but now I guess that'll be game 3 since that'll be the first Saturday game. Damn wierdos at MLB. I liked the old way of scheduling it.

[TheDevilAndGodAreRagingInsideMe 0]

Why are they afraid of starting on a "bad ratings night" Saturday all of a sudden? This is the WORLD SERIES. People watch this thing.

[Cheech Tremendous 0]

Why are they afraid of starting on a "bad ratings night" Saturday all of a sudden? This is the WORLD SERIES. People watch this thing.

Someone hasn't been paying attention to the ratings.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

You know what the real problem is? All year long, they spend their time advertising and hyping a certain few teams. And when they don't appear in the postseason or make a deep run there, the fans are conditioned to think that the real good teams are gone and all that's left are lucky flukes or "boring" teams with no fanbase.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

You know what the real problem is? All year long, they spend their time advertising and hyping a certain few teams. And when they don't appear in the postseason or make a deep run there, the fans are conditioned to think that the real good teams are gone and all that's left are lucky flukes or "boring" teams with no fanbase.

 

Yep, that's pretty much it.

[snuffbox 0]

Pretty good point there.

[Vern Gagne 0]

The problem is we haven't seen a competive World Series since 2003.

[sfaJack 0]

The '05 Series was pretty competitive--four games decided by a total of six runs. It only seemed non-competitive because the Astros just happened to lose all four.

[Guest George's Box]

Allow me to channel Czech here, "Or fix it so that the Cubs, Red Sox, Dodgers or Cardinals are in the World Series, because no one cares about the other teams bah gawd!"

Why would I say "bah gawd"? Dumb.

 

And in spite of you trying to mock me, I'll stand by it. The World Series isn't quite the sports-transcending event that the Super Bowl is. You're not going to have a huge number of people watching baseball for baseball's sake. Most people want just to watch their teams, and there is a tier of established teams with much larger fanbases than the rest. The "we'll just take it one day at a time" 2002 Anaheim Angels just weren't going to captivate people, because they're the Angels, and really not that fun to watch. That's not really the fault of ESPN, that's just how it is. I don't know why surmising that popular teams yield large ratings is such a transgression. The Red Sox are very very popular. The White Sox, considerably less so. More people are going to watch the Red Sox than the White Sox, and the ratings will bear this out. It's basic math. Would you deny that more people would be interested in watching the Cardinals or Dodgers than the Rockies or Marlins? Would you really? You'll get the diehard fans, then the locals, and when it comes to that, you'd definitely want as many locals as you can, from a ratings standpoint.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I'm going to Milwaukee this weekend.

[Boon 0]

The World Series isn't quite the sports-transcending event that the Super Bowl is.

Besides the fact that the Super Bowl is a one-time event. People don't have long enough attention spans to follow [potentially] seven games.

[Guest George's Box]

And really, I think you could make the same case for the NBA Finals and Stanley Cup, that your ratings success will be largely contingent on the two home markets, since the diehards will always be there.

[UseTheSledgehammerUh 0]

"Major League Baseball will announce Monday that the 2007 Fall Classic will start on Wednesday instead of Saturday, USA Today reported."

 

THANK GOD.

[USC Wuz Robbed! 0]

I would rather watch the Angels, Marlins, White Sox, etc over Yankees, Red Sox, Cardinals and Cubs, yeah. The only team of the "established" tier (which I find to be a crock of shit as baseball is largely regional) that I'd watch would be the Dodgers.

[Dobbs 3K 0]

I think baseball could do a better job promoting the two World Series teams, whoever they might be.

 

I partly blame FOX. Their World Series coverage is generally pretty bad. I hate how, during the games, they try to build up all this fake drama between pitches. It gets really annoying.

[Guest George's Box]

The only team of the "established" tier (which I find to be a crock of shit as baseball is largely regional)

But that's my point. It's a very regional sport, so from a ratings standpoint, you want to capture the big provinces.

 

Fox's presentation is regrettable, however.

[devo 0]

So, ESPN cut to the Braves/Nats game to cover Bergmann's no hitter through seven.

 

BLAM

 

Not one minute afterwards, McCann hits a solo shot. That was pretty damn funny.

[Guest Smues]

Thank you ESPN. I owe you one. Sadly.