Fox Baseball's Opening Weekend

Friday, April 04, 2008


We already know FOX's schedule for this Saturday but do you know which game you're getting yet? Well now you do thanks to reader MS. Here's the breakdown of which major cities are getting which contests this Sunday (All start at 3:55pm)....

New York Mets vs. Atlanta Braves- Joe Buck, Tim McCarver & Ken Rosenthal
MARKETS INCLUDE: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Birmingham, Buffalo, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Fort Myers, Greensboro, Greenville, Hartford, Houston, Jacksonville, Knoxville, Memphis, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, New York, Norfolk, Oklahoma City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Raleigh, Richmond, San Antonio, St. Louis, Tampa, Tulsa, Washington, West Palm Beach

Chicago White Sox vs. Detroit Tigers- Thom Brennamman and Jose Mota
MARKETS INCLUDE: Boston, Chicago, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Dayton, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Louisville, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Providence, Seattle

Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Diego Padres- Matt Vasgersian and Eric Karros
MARKETS INCLUDE: Albuquerque, Denver, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Portland, Sacramento, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco
Obviously most of us are getting the Buck/McCarver game, but a few lucky cities get to do without the duo. In other FOX Baseball News they network has hired former Braves and O's Hitting Coach Leo Mazzone as an analyst. The guy is a genius but I really can't remember hearing him talk.

(Thanks again to reader MS for the tip)

15 Comments:

Thom and Jose Mota!!! Is that really an upgrade over Buck and McCarver???

GMoney said...
Apr 4, 2008, 10:39:00 AM  

Hooray! Fox thinking at its best. Everybody in the Eastern Time Zone is a New York fan. Everybody in the Central Time Zone is a Chicago fan. And everybody in the Pacific Time Zone is a Los Angeles fan.

J.J. said...
Apr 4, 2008, 10:47:00 AM  

Yes, that is why I hate FOX baseball J.J. Every week, we either get the Yankees, Mets, or Red Sox. Every single week.
Do you know if sports bars are able to show the other 2 Fox games?

Anonymous said...
Apr 4, 2008, 10:59:00 AM  

Mazzone's too busy rocking back & forth to speak, and I agree, gmoney, T-hom is nails on the chalkboard for me. I would say Steve Lyons is somewhere smiling, but he's got his own issues (still).

Apr 4, 2008, 11:05:00 AM  

Mazzone's a pitching coach.

twoeightnine said...
Apr 4, 2008, 11:12:00 AM  

Mazzone was certainly one of the best PITCHING coaches of recent history, except for his stint with the O's...

Anonymous said...
Apr 4, 2008, 12:00:00 PM  

Which begs the question...would any of us have been among the best pitching coaches with Glavine, Maddux, Smoltz...

Anonymous said...
Apr 4, 2008, 12:16:00 PM  

FOX isn't doing what NBC, CBS or ABC wouldn't do if they had network baseball.

Mikey said...
Apr 4, 2008, 12:55:00 PM  

does jose mota EVEN SPEAK ENGLISH?

Anonymous said...
Apr 4, 2008, 2:51:00 PM  

Matt Vasgersian with Eric Karros is like a comedian giving his act in front of a brick wall. What a waste! FOX should have went after Ron Darling. He would have been able to process and have a laugh with Vasgersian's shtick. Plus he's good at what he does.

Anonymous said...
Apr 4, 2008, 3:29:00 PM  

1=Mets @ Braves - 52% — Joe Buck, Tim McCarver, Ken Rosenthal
2=White Sox @ Tigers - 27% — Thom Brennaman, Jose Mota
3=Dodgers @ Padres - 20% — Matt Vasgersian, Eric Karros

Anonymous said...
Apr 4, 2008, 9:36:00 PM  

J.J. said...
Hooray! Fox thinking at its best. Everybody in the Eastern Time Zone is a New York fan. Everybody in the Central Time Zone is a Chicago fan. And everybody in the Pacific Time Zone is a Los Angeles fan.

That's why it's called regional coverage - any other network would do the exact same thing.

Anonymous said...
Apr 5, 2008, 10:55:00 AM  

It's no different than what ESPN does with it's Sunday night game, always the red sox, yankees, angels, dodgers, or angels.

They wonder why there's zero interest when the world series rolls around and one of these teams isn't in it? It's because the casual fan, the one who watches on tv, hasn't had a chance to see these other teams. Yet another way the NFL blows away MLB in terms of marketing, and why NFL games are always so much more highly rated than baseball games. Hell, I bet an average MNF game draws more viewers than a MLB world series game.

Disappointing to those of us who follow a team not in one of the 3 biggest media markets.

Unknown said...
Apr 5, 2008, 2:10:00 PM  

I thought I posted a comment along these lines before, but can I get a [citation needed] on the Mazzone story? Where is MS getting this information from? And if it's not publicly available on the Internet can I at least get that much? I have personal reasons for it but if this info is coming from an easily-accessible source, and it contains a full lineup of announcers for the season, I think the folks on Wikipedia would love to see it...

Morgan Wick said...
Apr 5, 2008, 5:27:00 PM  

On the topic of getting Fox to carry more teams: The only way to get them to do that is to make them carry ALL the games on Saturday, which they don't do because it's too expensive. I'm not convinced that the Baseball Network in the mid-90s couldn't have worked; creating at least two network-timeslots for games would allow two-team markets to see both teams and would guarantee the possibility of national exposure to good teams that might not be in big markets. I have long entertained notions of baseball adopting an NFL-like structure with separate AL and NL networks splitting most if not all of the games across two time slots on Saturday. (That would be four network-timeslots, two timeslots times two networks.)

Incidentially, have a look at CBS' "Top MLB Team Pages" list on the right sidebar. Fox doesn't even shove the RIGHT teams down our throats! Yo Fox! Where's the love for the Braves, Tigers, Reds, and Cardinals fans? Why shove the Dodgers, Angels, and White Sox down our throats when they don't have any of the top ten fanbases in baseball, at least based on this unscientific survey? If big markets is all you care about, where the hell are the Phillies?

Morgan Wick said...
Apr 5, 2008, 5:44:00 PM  

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