On Tuesday, ESPN unveiled their Sunday Night Baseball schedule for the first half of the season. Since the Red Sox were not a good baseball team in 2012, they are not going to be making as many appearances as we are used to on the Worldwide Leader. That's a positive, in many ways, like not having to stay up until midnight to watch them play the Yankees in a four-hour game on a Sunday night, but it's still surprising given how much money Sox/Yanks generates for the rest of the league, who share in the revenue from these games.
Here's the full (well, half-full) schedule, so you can plot out your late-July weekend:
Date |
Game |
March 31 |
|
April 7 |
Los Angeles Angels at Texas Rangers * |
April 14 |
|
April 21 |
|
April 28 |
|
May 5 |
|
May 12 |
Los Angeles Angels at Chicago White Sox |
May 19 |
Detroit Tigers at Texas Rangers |
May 26 |
Atlanta Braves at New York Mets |
July 14 |
St. Louis Cardinals at Chicago Cubs |
July 21 |
New York Yankees at Boston Red Sox |
For some reason, the Washington Nationals, who just might be baseball's best team, one full of exciting, nationally known players, does not have a single ESPN Sunday Night game in the first half. Curious, that. Granted, the second-half might be chalk full of them, and if Boston plays better than the television executives are giving them credit for, they'll be there, too.
While this was known already, ESPN also points out that John Kruk will be joining the booth, in lieu of the departed Terry Francona, who is now managing the Cleveland Indians.