SI

It’s Time for MLB to Find a Way to Have Local Broadcasters Call Postseason Games

Bob Uecker and Howie Rose showed everyone how important local broadcasters are in baseball.

Jimmy Traina

Bob Uecker and Howie Rose went through the emotions during the Mets’ shocking win over the Brewers.
Bob Uecker and Howie Rose went through the emotions during the Mets’ shocking win over the Brewers. / Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images/Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel/USA Today Network

1. This is not the day to dump all over Major League Baseball. The league is coming off an exhilarating Game 3 in the Brewers-Mets series, it has a good mix of new and old blood remaining in the playoffs and ESPN has enjoyed a nice ratings increase for the wild-card round.

So, I’ll just say this briefly before getting to what I really want to get to today. I don’t know what the solution is. I don’t even know if there is a solution. But MLB needs to work with ESPN about providing some sort of secondary feeds with hometown broadcasters during the wild-card games.

This isn’t about the ability of ESPN’s baseball announcers. Some are good, some are not good. But they just don’t convey the emotion that match the moments. They don’t provide the biased excitement that adds to moment.

Depriving fans of the hometown broadcasters during the most important games of the season, after the local broadcasters have to slog through 162 games, hurts the sport and the fans.

Again, I wish I had a solution. I don’t know if ESPN can give you its crew on the main channel and then provide two alternate feeds on ESPN+ with the local crews, but it should at least be looked into.

If baseball can embarrass itself and sell games on Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. to Roku, it can find a way to make a feed featuring local broadcasters available to fans.

There is no downside to doing this except someone, God forbid, might have to pay the local broadcasters to call a few extra games. But the goodwill that it would create between ESPN/MLB and the fans would be significant.

Local broadcasters are more important in baseball than in any other sports. They call 162 games. They are the soundtrack of your summer. They create a bond with fans unlike broadcasters in another sport. It’s time to end the practice of the local broadcasters disappearing once the most important games of the season take place.

This all brings me to Thursday night. With the Mets’ excellent local TV crew of Gary Cohen, Keith Hernandez and Ron Darling being sidelined in the playoffs, New York fans only had its radio guy, Howie Rose, to give them a thrilling call of Pete Alonso’s surreal three-run home run in the top of the ninth inning that gave the Mets a 3–2 win. And Rose came through as well as any play-by-play person could with a perfect call from start to finish.

In a fantastic scene later on the in the night, the Mets played Rose’s call on the team plane, which led to a nice moment between Rose and Alonso.

On the flip side, legendary Brewers broadcaster Bob Uecker was completely crestfallen after the Brewers collapse.

2. This week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina features two main guests.

First up is The Athletic’s Andrew Marchand on all the latest sports media news. Topics covered include ESPN looking at Shams Charania, Jeff Passan and Chris Haynes as possible replacements for Adrian Wojnarowski as its top NBA insider; what ESPN will do about its top NBA booth featuring Mike Breen and Doris Burke after losing JJ Redick; how Tom Brady has done as an analyst after four games; how Cris Collinsworth’s new contract affects Greg Olsen; Tony Romo’s improvement; an old-fashion Twitter fight between reporters and much more.

Following Marchand, David Shoemaker from The Ringers joins the podcast to discuss Netflix's “Mr. McMahon” six-part docuseries in which he was a producer and talking head. Shoemaker shares details on the making of the doc, how a bombshell lawsuit against Vince McMahon during production affected the documentary, what it was like for the makers to interview McMahon, the McMahon family dynamic and much more.

Following Shoemaker, Sal Licata from WFAN radio and SNY TV in New York joins Jimmy for their weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week’s conversation covers the MLB playoffs, NFL scheduling issues, Dana Carvey, Saturday Night Live, Sal’s knowledge of presidents and more.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on Sports Illustrated‘s YouTube channel.

3. Bucs offensive lineman Tristan Wirfs has a brutally honest and very graphic response to Tampa Bay choking away a late 30–27 lead and losing 36–30 in overtime to the Falcons on Thursday night.

4. “Now people are betting on third-and-4.” Good stuff here from Al Michaels on how his enjoyment of making sly gambling references has gone down over the past couple of years.

5. Cal alum Marshawn Lynch had a very amusing take to being named this week’s guest picker on ESPN’s College GameDay, which will be in Berkley for the Miami-Cal game.

6. If you’re a football fan, you are very familiar with this clip of Reggie Bush getting destroyed when he was on the Saints.

Here’s Bush recalling the hit and revealing what he said to Drew Brees after Brees caused him to get lit up.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: Earlier this week, Chris Berman celebrated his 45th anniversary at ESPN. Terrible job by me not acknowledging it on the day it happened, especially since I’ve always been a huge Berman fan and always will be.

Normally, I never post a video here more than four or five minutes, but I’m breaking that rule today because Berman deserves a proper tribute and you have all weekend to watch it.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on Twitter and Instagram.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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