ESPN Ruins Baseball

This is an excellent article about ESPN and the way they are ruining Sunday Night Baseball, and I thought I would post it here as well. It is from Henry Schulman of the San Francisco Chronicle. (With thanks to Johanna Wagner and her terrific site.) It is short and sweet and to the point.

I am boycotting ESPN “Sunday Night Baseball” tomorrow

I’m not one to call for boycotts. I’m just telling you what I’m doing.

Tomorrow night, the New York Mets will appear on “Sunday Night Baseball” for the third consecutive week. Next week it will be the Yankees, who opened the series and season April 4 against the Red Sox.

On May 16, ESPN takes a breather from its courtship with New York to show the Phillies at Brewers. Maybe that’s just so everyone can be rested up for the May 23 Yankees-Mets game on “Sunday Night Baseball.” It’s time for Major League Baseball to grow a pair and tell ESPN, “Enough.” There is baseball outside the Metropolis and the Hub.

Yes yes yes. ESPN pays a lot of money for the rights. All the teams share that money equally. It’s good for the Oakland A’s bottom line if incessant Yankees and Mets coverage drives ratings up. I’m a capitalist. I want ESPN to make money. Heck, my company owns a huge chunk of ESPN. What’s good for the network is good for the Chronicle.

But at some point, it get ridiculous, and three Mets games in three weeks is ridiculous.

Fix it.

Read more here.

Frankly, I am sick of ESPN hijacking EVERY Sunday game between the Red Sox and Yankees. I believe the last Sunday game they played in the afternoon was at Yankee Stadium in 2006. Granted I don't have to endure Michael Kay and the slobs at YES, but Joe Morgan is no greater alternative. I like to see a diversity of clubs on Sunday night. Listen, I'm as big a Red Sox fan as there is, but I'm sick of the tired, hackneyed way ESPN has to go into how every game between the Sox and MFY is some kind of "war."

Enough.