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Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Frayed Knot Apr 01 2014 08:48 PM

So I went out tonight, getting back a bit after 10:00, and figured I'd go cruising around for baseball scores/hi-lights. MLBN has scores on their crawl, but they're basically doing cut-ins on active games on account of their scheduled game (at Oakland) being rained out (first rainout in Oakland since 1998 btw) and I was looking to get some Yanqui hi-lights and stuff so I looked to SportsCenter. More than half an hour later and the only baseball was about 30 seconds of the Dodger game (apparently they're the new favorite) including an interview with Yasiel Puig in Spanish. Other than that it's interviews with college basketball coaches (for games that won't be played for five days), comments about the interviews with basketball coaches, and stuff about Tiger. It's all right guys, it's not like it's Opening Day for a bunch of clubs or anything. Fuck Bristol, Connecticut!

Ceetar Apr 01 2014 09:03 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

What are we paying, something like $6.50 a month for ESPN/ESPN2? Sure doesn't seem like money well spent.

RealityChuck Apr 01 2014 09:11 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Even at its best, ESPN on TV is a terrible place to get scores. Because it's linear, you often have to spend ten minutes looking at games you don't give a damn about until they find ones you do. Go to the website.

John Cougar Lunchbucket Apr 01 2014 09:17 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

I haven't watched ESPN for years, except if there's a Sunday Nite game on, or you know, a Nascar race or something. I sometimes watch the MLB channel, tho if I'm looking for scores or news in general it's this Internet thing.

Ceetar Apr 01 2014 09:27 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

John Cougar Lunchbucket wrote: I haven't watched ESPN for years, except if there's a Sunday Nite game on, or you know, a Nascar race or something. I sometimes watch the MLB channel, tho if I'm looking for scores or news in general it's this Internet thing. bah, MLB At-Bat app. hell, not even that. My phone has taken to telling me in the notification bar.

Frayed Knot Apr 02 2014 06:48 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Even at its best, ESPN on TV is a terrible place to get scores. Because it's linear, you often have to spend ten minutes looking at games you don't give a damn about until they find ones you do. Go to the website. I haven't watched ESPN for years, except if there's a Sunday Nite game on, or you know, a Nascar race or something. I sometimes watch the MLB channel, tho if I'm looking for scores or news in general it's this Internet thing. I don't generally turn to ESPN either, but in this case I got home after the 7:00 games were over and as the 8:00 ones were just about ending and wanted to check up on those while MLBN was in the midst of dropping in on the early innings of the west coast games because of the Oakland rainout. And it wasn't just to get scores, hell I can get those anywhere and already knew some of them, but I wanted my share of nightly baseball porn SEEING the Yanx & Sabathia get knocked around by a team that racked up 320 losses of the last three seasons. Plus there were other games to check up on too. But with NINE baseball games on the slate last night the only one they even acknowledged in over a half-hour of watching was Dodgers/Padres. The rest was all Tiger (a legit story but a case here of the usual ESPN star-overkill syndrome), NCAA hoops (games NOT being played for five days but I think they were reporting on what each of the coaches had for lunch), women's NCAA hoops (no one cares even though I realize they have to pretend to), NIT games (schools with teams in the NIT don't care about the NIT), and the latest borderline felon choosing a new football team (and how that'll affect the situation in Crimea). They eventually stuffed the remaining game hi-lights into a 90 second or so package at about 2 minutes of 11, but by that time I had been home about 45 minutes and had already unloaded my frustrations on you guys. I had long since accepted that the individuals employed by ESPN are either indifferent to or openly contemptuous of baseball. But I figured the part of their programming day that allegedly deals with news (this was ESPN News I was watching) was at least going to pretend that the season had already started and was going on, y'know, as they were broadcasting. Apparently now that bird has flown too.

G-Fafif Apr 02 2014 07:35 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Fox Sports 1 (check local listings) was hyping MLB Whiparound at 10 last night. Not sure if it's a nightly program. Seems to be some UFC action tonight in that time slot.

Frayed Knot Apr 02 2014 07:45 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Yeah, I probably should have checked FOX-1 but it didn't occur to me. They, at least, have a reason to acknowledge baseball and might actually hire some people who know or care whether the ball is wound with yarn or stuffed with feathers. Not that I hold out any great hope for a nightly show full of wise-cracking jocks-sniffers from a network diving headlong into human cock-fighting, but just the fact that an alternative exists to the Bristol Clown College (as Raissman calls the 'Worldwide Leader) is a start.

Ceetar Apr 02 2014 07:48 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

But what's wrong with the look-ins? MLB Network doesn't usually stick at a place for more than a half inning anyway, and then go back to scores around the league.

MFS62 Apr 02 2014 08:20 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

My favorite was the recent several hours long coverage of the Johnny Manzeil workout session for the pro scouts. Later

seawolf17 Apr 02 2014 08:26 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Ceetar wrote: But what's wrong with the look-ins? MLB Network doesn't usually stick at a place for more than a half inning anyway, and then go back to scores around the league. MLB Network has become my go-to for news and updates. You can't watch it for too long because it gets repetitive (like the drop-ins during the Montreal games), but at least it's all baseball and nothing else.

Frayed Knot Apr 02 2014 09:08 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Ceetar wrote: But what's wrong with the look-ins? MLB Network doesn't usually stick at a place for more than a half inning anyway, and then go back to scores around the league. Nothing wrong with it and a lot right with it. I go there often and that's where I eventually got the Yanqui hi-lights last night. It's just that at the moment I tuned in they were just getting into drop-ins for the early innings of the west coast games because they were expecting to be showing the game from Oakland and therefore, at that moment, weren't doing hi-lights of the early ones. So I kept flicking between them and ESPN News figuring that the latter show generally spins through more stories more quickly. After a while it became a source of fascination to me about how little baseball they were going to do despite it being day 2 of the season, day 1 for some of the teams, and with virtually nothing else going on at that moment. At one point they even had the Yanx/Astros next on the 'run-down' list of stories coming up ... before bumping it in order to get another one of their talking heads saying the same shit about the same shit. It was as if they resolved to talk baseball only after they exhausted everything else and couldn't possibly avoid it any longer.

Ceetar Apr 02 2014 09:15 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

When I want specifics I usually go directly to that gameday game on mlb.com or on the phone app and watch the highlights.

Edgy MD Apr 02 2014 09:44 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Well, agreeing as we seem to that ESPN has failed to deliver baseball news and programming in a manner and volume commensurate with their market position, our only conflict here seems to be whether to drive them, through shaming, toward their own redemption, or to ignore them entirely, and so further empower their competitors who better fulfill our baseball-loving mandate.

Ceetar Apr 02 2014 09:53 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Edgy MD wrote: Well, agreeing as we seem to that ESPN has failed to deliver baseball news and programming in a manner and volume commensurate with their market position, our only conflict here seems to be whether to drive them, through shaming, toward their own redemption, or to ignore them entirely, and so further empower their competitors who better fulfill our baseball-loving mandate. I think we should petition our cable* companies to make ESPN an optional add-on instead of part of basic cable. hell, YES too.

Frayed Knot Apr 02 2014 11:20 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Edgy MD wrote: Well, agreeing as we seem to that ESPN has failed to deliver baseball news and programming in a manner and volume commensurate with their market position, our only conflict here seems to be whether to drive them, through shaming, toward their own redemption, or to ignore them entirely, and so further empower their competitors who better fulfill our baseball-loving mandate. Oh I'm convinced that ignoring is the only choice. It's not like they're unaware that they're known as the all football all the time network, or that they were mocked for diving headlong into Tebow a couple years back (and now Manzell) so attempting to shame them seems far beyond even possible. And while it's not like anyone is going to knock ESPN off their perch anytime soon, nor do I have much faith that the quality is going to be a whole lot better from the likes of FOX & NBC now that they've got full-time sports networks, just the fact that there's now actual competition for shelf-space with the big dog at least means alternatives for those tuning in for sports news or games.

Ceetar Apr 02 2014 11:28 AM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Conversation at lunch just now (we usually watch Millionaire at 12:30, but the Blue Moon Delivery guy was late) Yankee Fan: "Put on ESPN, I want to see highlights from the game last night." ESPN: interviewing some coach. ESPN2: First Take/DeSean Jackson I don't think we get the MLB Network at work. don't have a guide though so it's hard to tell.

HahnSolo Apr 02 2014 12:00 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

I don't mind watching Baseball Tonight when it is on, but I usually go with MLB Network. Not a big fan of a lot of the MLB Network ex-jocks (B Ripken, Plesac, and Reynolds in particular) but you get consistent scores, stats, highlights and discussion with MLBN.

TransMonk Apr 02 2014 12:13 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

Other than watching actual games, I don't use the TV to get sports news anymore. The internet is the best place to get the news you want because you can ignore what you don't care about. If I want to see specific highlights at a place other than home, I check my phone. ESPN (and any other networks) are the equal to FOX News or MSNBC. They have a money making agenda targeted at a specific audience (that I have decided I am not a part of).

d'Kong76 Apr 02 2014 12:18 PM Re: Just TRY to get some baseball news out of ESPN ...

I like MLB in medium doses, particularly like Reynolds.