The winter is wrapping up and I don't care if that damn groundhog saw his shadow, because that's what happens when the media is involved and artifically make dear old Phil see it every year.  It seems like the media screws up a lot of things.  I'm not talking about the press though, but rather the folks who are responsible for nationally televised baseball games.  Right now that responsibility belongs to Fox and ESPN.  As much as I love baseball both do things in their own special way, which forces you to have a totally different experience when you catch a game on each network.  Well I'm not going to critique them, because that would be easy, especially for Fox who I believe has completely killed the baseball viewing experience.  Think about this.  There is an entire generation of children who have been subjected to fear stats like "you're favorite player is subject to commit suicide when a 23 year old right handed hurler from Iowa pitches", the old Tim McCarver and Scooter the animated baseball.   That rant is not happening today.

I'm feeling nostalgic.  I'm not talking throwback uniforms or living with an outfiled of Jim Rice, Tony Armas and Dwight Evans.  I'm talking Monday Night Baseball.  Does anybody even remember this show on ABC?  I used to live for this during my summer vacations.  I don't rememer the days of Bob Prince or even Keith Jackson, but my memory kicks in when the name Al Michaels is thrown out.  I feel like most sports fans believe that Michaels went straight from the Miracle on Ice to  the Monday Night Football booth.  In my eyes  he'll always be a baseball guy.  I loved how he called a game.  It was always interesting and straight.  Can you imagine what was going on in his head during the San Francisco earthquake?  This is a guy who was tasked with being ABC's lead commentator because it occured during the World Series.  Think that's tough?  The camera panned to his neighborhood (North Beach) and he had to seriously wonder if his home would be there when he left for the night.

I watched a lot of Monday Night Baseball, but there are two moments that stand out above all the others.  The beauty is that they are completely random and score a -75 on the historical significance scale.  Well that's not true, because one involved Roger Clemens and his issue with "big game" pitching.  The first memory involves one of the 832 aging superstars that the Red Sox seemed to acquire after their prime was long gone.  It was 1980-something and Mike Torrez was on the mound.  I always pulled for Torrez.  Most likely that was due to him not being good and me praying hard that he would not be so mediocre.  I forget who they were playing, but he blew a lead and it looked bad.  All of a sudden Tony Perez hits a BOMB into the center field bleachers and the game turns around.  I looked at my Mom, who knew nothing but the minimum which meant she knew who Yaz was, and said "When did we get Tony Perez?"  Obviously she had no idea, but I was genuinely surprised to see him.  Most likely I was in a Tonka Truck coma when that occured.

Memory number two rolls in, because it was one of the last games I remember.  The Oakland A's were in town and the goons, Jose Canseco and Dave Kingman, were in the middle of the Oakland line-up.  At the same time it was one of the first of many Roger Clemens vs Dave Stewart battles.  I was spending the night at my friend Jay "Psycho" Medieros' house and we couldn't wait for the game to start.  We were convinced that Clemens was going to dominate the A's, but he didn't.  We're talking 1986 here.  The best year Roger ever had in my eyes.  He struck out 20 batters earlier in the year.  He was thrusted onto the baseball map and became an instant superstar.  Well that night Roger was mediocre.  He got shelled.  I swear Dave Kingman hit seven homeruns that probably traveled across Rhode Island.  I had never seen Roger beaten so badly.  I was crushed.  I hadn't seen it that year.  I thought he was invincible.  Little did I know that he would continue to struggle against the A's  and Dave Stewart for years to come.

Those memories mean nothing except they occured on Monday Night Baseball.  I know ESPN has Sunday Night Baseball, which is a nice way to wind down an activity filled summer weekend and who actually watched Saturday afternoon baseball when it's sunny and 85 degrees outside?  Heck, even I rarely commit to that, which is why I think Fox's Saturday baseball is plain dumb.  Fox, seeing that they hold broadcast rights should dump the Saturday games and bring back Monday Night Baseball or better yet, ABC (ESPN's parent company), should bring it back.  Seriously, does anybody care about CSI re-runs?  It's been an open door for years and with baseball as popular as ever, now is the right time to bring it back.  However, we're trying to get something special put together from the networks that killed Monday Night Football(ABC), the baseball watching experience (Fox) and Bud Selig.  That will never happen.  There is about as much original creative talent within that tribal council to come up with twenty more All Star Game ties.  Like most things good and fun in this world, I can dream.  This time though I'm going to pray like I did for Mike Torrez.

 

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