Opening day baseball always is great fun, thanks in large part to ESPN's tripleheader (or quadruple, counting ESPN2) providing the chance to steal a day to just soak in the start of a new season.
But baseball still falls short when it comes to flashy openings. The opening weekend of the NFL, that's pomp and circumstance and all that good stuff. It kicks off a season that never seems to stop breathing.
Baseball doesn't have that mastery down yet, but it might be moving toward doing it right. On April 16, more than a month before it begins its regular slate of scheduled broadcasts but two weeks after opening day, Fox will televise the first Yankees-Red Sox meeting at Fenway in prime time.
You want flashy, you want pomp, you want circumstance?
"If it were up to me, we'd take the whole series and come back a week later and carry all their games at Yankee Stadium," Fox Sports president Ed Goren said.
The only thing better for baseball fans would be opening the season with this series. But it's still enough to drive some early interest, as opposed to the opening day explosion of games and then ... a slow trickle of less charged cable offerings.
This year, just as fans get ready to settle in after the opening day excitement fades ... wham!
"Opening day is exciting every year, and this is sort of a relaunch of the season in the middle of April," Goren said. "This is going to be an event."
The rivalry has been fueled by the Red Sox's failed pursuit of Alex Rodriguez while the Yankees came in afterward to snap up the game's best player. That only added a few logs to a fire that burns bright after last year's American League Championship Series won by New York and was the impetus for Fox doing a prime-time regular season game for the first time since 1998, when Mark McGwire hit his 62nd home run.
"We started thinking about this at some point after the Yankees closed the deal with A-Rod," Goren said.
Fox averaged a 2.7 rating, or about 3.6-million viewers, for last season's Saturday broadcasts, and the ALCS did better numbers than Monday Night Football and averaged 10.7.
Anything above last year's regular average would be a boost toward Fox making this a yearly, and much-needed, tradition, which Goren hopes it becomes.
TRIVIA: What year did ESPN premiere its MLB telecasts with Baltimore at Kansas City? Hint: it was the same year Baseball Tonight debuted.
TOUGH LUCK: Expect Yankee-Red Sox overload this year, at the expense of some other good stories. There will be a surprise team in the AL Central, once again feeding the argument of those who think a small-market team can compete despite the New York and Boston excesses. The AL West race holds a great deal of promise.
The challenge for networks is to make sure these stories get covered. Anyone who sat through a zillion Bulls-Celtics NBA games and Yankee-Whoever games back before cable television exploded knows all about the inclination of networks to zero in on the hot story and the "name" teams.
Count Fox Sports Net play-by-play man Dewayne Staats as one who thinks the story that could be glossed over might be the Devil Rays.
"If the Devil Rays were in the AL Central, I think they would be one of the stories of the year," Staats said. "If this club gets a little pitching and played in the Central, that could be a very competitive situation." Instead, the Rays are grounded in the toughest division with the biggest stars.
"The structure (of the divisions) might prevent baseball from cashing in on another great story," Staats said.
M-N-M: Joe Morgan and Jon Miller return for their 15th year of calling ESPN games when Sunday Night Baseball debuts tonight with Boston at Baltimore (8, ESPN2).
AROUND THE HORN: Only 22 Devil Rays games will be unavailable to TV viewers, as partners FSN (75) and PAX-TV (65) will combine to broadcast 140 games. FSN will produce the games for both channels, with Staats and Joe Magrane calling the action.
TRIVIA ANSWER: 1990.
BASEBALLONTV
ESPN/ESPN2: Sunday Night Baseball, Wednesday night doubleheaders, ESPN DayGame (weekly afternoon games), Monday Night Baseball, Baseball Tonight studio show, MLB division series, Home Run Derby, All-Star programming, opening day and holiday games.
FOX: Holds rights to most postseason games, including the World Series and both league championship series. Also will air the All-Star Game, the April 16 prime-time game between New York and Boston, and a weekly game Saturday afternoons beginning May 22.
FOX SPORTS NET FLORIDA: Rays and Marlins games throughout the season.
PAX-TV, CH. 66: Rays games throughout the season.
TBS: Braves games throughout the season.
WGN: Cubs and White Sox games throughout the season.
