The Twins and ESPN
I had sportscenter on the TV this morning as I was getting ready for work, and while in the other room I heard them start to introduce a highlight from the Twins-Red Sox game from yesterday. I dashed out to the living room to check it out. First they show Josh Beckett getting someone to pop out, and spend a few seconds saying how awesome he is. Then they cut to some random Red Sox minor league outfielder making a mildly impressive catch in left on a Nick Punto sinking liner. And finally they show Kevin Youklis hitting his homer. It was the most biased highlight I have ever seen. The only time a Twins player was mentioned was Punto because he hit the ball that was caught on an “amazing play”. It was total BS. Granted, the Twins didn’t really do much on offense. We did turn four double plays, I’m sure one of them was cool. I also realize that time allotted for Spring Training highlights is less than time allotted for regular season highlights, but come on. ESPN really needs to stop catering to “Red Sox nation” and give even coverage to all teams. In the age of fantasy sports, pretty much every team has at least a few relevant players (except maybe the Pirates). People who play fantasy baseball are curious as to how their players are playing and watching game highlights on sportscenter is one of the best ways to do that.
The Red Sox are probably my second most hated team in all of sports. So you can imagine that I’m upset that not only are they getting tons of exposure on sportscenter, but it is at the expense of one of my favorite teams in all of sports. What do you guys think, is this something that everyone notices, or am I just crazy? Would this have happened if the Twins put on more of an offensive show or will ESPN do anything to talk up the Red Sox?
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That’s how ESPN rolls. They’re the epicenter of Red Sox Nation, and most of their writers used to work for Boston newspapers and live in CT and root for the Red Sox. They don’t understand that the MLB is larger than the Red Sox / Yankees rivalry.
And a couple of the double plays we turned were cool. On one of them Punto made a good throw to second and Casilla caught the ball while running toward the third base line, jumped off the bag and fired to first to barely beat the runner.
On another play, there was a grounder toward right field, and Casilla ran 10+ feet to his left, dove to get the ball and threw a strike from his ass — while rolling over — to get the runner.
The guy who caught Punto’s fly ball made a good play (I was shocked he was able to make that catch, actually), but Casilla had some better plays that went unnoticed because of the logo on his hat.
Its one thing to have people like Bill Simmons on staff, nobody expects him to be objective. But when most of your baseball staff are very biased, you are in trouble. Peter Gammons was a writer for the Boston Globe. Buster Olney was a beat writer for the Yankees at the new york times (yes, apparently they do have a sports section). I really think espn should do for baseball what they have done with basketball and the TrueHoop network. A network of blogs that covers all the NBA teams. I volunteer firegardy.com to be the Twins representative on such a network.
This is why I’m glad MLB network has come along- so far they haven’t been showing nearly as much bias towards the Yanks/Red Sox (plus, there’s just a lot more coverage). A little competition for the Baseball Tonight slot might motivate the folks at ESPN to remove their heads from their sphincters.
To be fair, the Twins looked like they were half-asleep at the plate Sunday. But if the ESPN announcers decided to praise Beckett, they definitely should have given a nod to Slowey as well.
I wouldn’t say MLBN is much better than ESPN when it comes to Boston-worshiping.
Yesterday during the game they had some technical difficulties with the camera at the stadium. So they cut away to commercial until they could get the studio crew in place. Then they cut to the studio crew, and it went like this:
Guy 1: So what do we think about the status of baseball in 2009? Guy 2: Well, to me, the Red Sox are really the perfect franchise. They’ve simply done everything right. Guy 3: Yeah and they’re really a franchise that, when you look at it, is built on homegrown players as well as free agents. That’s really special. Guy 1: The Red Sox are really good. We’re the MLB Network, where baseball is always on!
Then they cut to commercial again, and when they came back, they played that exact same tape over and over until the game was available again.
It was EXCRUCIATING.
Yeah, but they’ve been doing stuff like that for EVERY organization. It’s interesting to see that they have lengthy Orioles and Astros analysis, for example. You know ESPN wouldn’t give the time of day to those teams.
Very true, they’re doing their “30 teams in 30 days” thing. ESPN would never do that.
But this wasn’t a question about the Red Sox. It was a question about baseball in general, and the answer was “The Red Sox are great!”
And seriously, what team doesn’t have at least some mix of homegrown talent and free agents?
And if they were going to talk about the Red Sox because it was during a Red Sox game … allow me to point out that it was also a Twins game. And they did not mention the Twins at all.
Remember a few years back on ESPN when Steve Phillips held mock MLB GM press conferences. They made it seem like they were going to do every team, but in reality they only did the Yankees, Red Sox, Mets and a few other teams. I’m pretty sure he didn’t do the Twins.
Population distribution. They cater to the larger markets. It’s frustrating to see limited coverage for the Twins, but perfectly understandable. If you want equal coverage for all teams maybe you should take it up with the socialist running the country.
I wouldn’t say its all population distribution. The Angels don’t seem to get that much coverage. I recently learned that Houston is the Country’s 4th largest city, behind New York, LA, and Chicago. The astros are hardly on tv. However, you do have a point. There are more people who claim to be red sox fans, (i.e. buy a cable package with espn) than many other teams (sometimes combined). I’m not necessarily demanding equal time, but it seems like ESPN might as well be NESP, New England Sports Programming Network.
Also, there’s a chicken and egg problem here. While it’s true that there is a disproportionate number of “Red Sox fans” buying cable packages and pink hats, that does not imply that they existed before ESPN started showing nothing but Red Sox and essentially encouraging their audience to become fans of a specific team.
If that’s not irresponsible journalism, I think the definition is incorrect.
Also, let me point out that this is not a political blog, so I hope you consider “the socialist running the country” to be a joke similar in meaning and potential reaction to “the illiterate that runs the country” that might have been uttered a year ago. Otherwise, comments like that have no place here. Whoever you are.
Agreed. How many people in random, rural places in Idaho or Nebraska or something have been drawn to the Red Sox because of their exposure on ESPN? My guess is a lot. It also doesn’t help that one of their most recognizable faces (Peter Gammons) is a former Red Sox beat writer.