Reid Fischer's World of Rants

Sometimes I wonder if the national networks realize there are other baseball teams we might want to watch besides the Red Sox and the Yankees.  ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball game last night featured the Red Sox and the Twins, which is fine, it’s a good matchup.  Thing is, ESPN is showing that matchup AGAIN this evening, despite several other good games on the schedule.  It is not in any way a shock that next week’s Sunday night game will feature the Yankees and Mets.  The TBS Sunday afternoon schedule has been similar so far.  Of the first eight games on their schedule in April and May, five involve either Boston or the Yankees.  It is fairly obvious why the networks like big market teams, among the chief reasons being that a game involving two large market clubs is likely to garner a larger audience and therefore more advertising dollars.  Still, it seems appalling to me that my Colorado Rockies have been shown on national TV exactly ZERO times so far this year the season following a World Series appearance.  Now, clearly their start this season hasn’t been worthy of much national air time, but a World Series appearance should guarantee at least some national exposure during the first month of the following season.  With the exception of one Saturday regional broadcast on Fox that was shown to less than a third of the country, the Rockies have not been shown any respect by the national MLB broadcast partners, while they continue to shove the same teams down our throat every week.  I realize that some teams have more sex appeal than others, and it goes without saying that certain teams will receive more exposure than others.  That being said, as a true fan of the game I want to see the best teams, not the ones with the most tradition or star power.  It might surprise you who has the best record in the National League right now.  I’ll give you a hint, it’s a franchise that’s won two World Series since 1997, but they’ve also had exactly zero national tv appearances this year and aren’t scheduled for any in the future.  Go ahead and guess, I’ll wait.

The answer would be the Florida Marlins, who are 23-14 and have a three game lead in the NL East, better than the mighty Mets, Phillies and Braves, all of whom are loaded with national TV appearances this year.  Now, as a fan of the game, I just might want to actually watch a Marlins game once in awhile if they really are that good.  Thing is, I have no idea because I haven’t had a chance to see them.  Yet I’ve been saddled with a number of games involving the Detroit Tigers, who made a big splash in terms of offseason spending and currently sit in last place in the AL Central, behind the mighty Kansas City Royals.  It might also surprise you to learn that Tampa Bay is 21-16, only a game and a half behind Boston in the AL East.  Or how about the Oakland A’s, pretty much coming out of nowhere to lead the AL West at 23-16?  Again, I don’t know much about either team except for the stats that I see because they’re never on TV either.  It was quite amusing actually to watch the national announcers embarrass themselves last October trying to announce the Rockies’ games as they made their run to the World Series.  It was clear some of them weren’t at all prepared and hadn’t watched the team play all year, even though they proved to be a legit playoff team.  It will be amusing if the networks find themselves in the same position again this year.  I just wish the networks would vary the teams they show on occasion.  I would imagine most fans would agree they don’t always want to be stuck watching the same teams every night.

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ESPN.com has released it’s NFL power rankings based on where they feel the teams currently stand after the draft and other acquisitions.  I find it inexcusable that the Giants are down to number six after they won the Super Bowl.  To me, they should be number one at least until they play a real game in September, unless they were to completely blow up the roster, which they haven’t.  It also interesting they have the Colts at number two, ahead of the Chargers at three, even though the Chargers beat the Colts on the road in the playoffs last year.  Strangely enough, I’m not that surprised they have my Broncos at 23, because on paper it does seem like there are questions regarding multiple parts of the roster.  Many national folks don’t seem to be big fans of the team’s draft, although i think they did a good job filling roster needs, even if it’s impossible to actually evaluate the draft until these guys have played multiple seasons.  Frankly, the power rankings are fun to talk about, particularly for someone like me who is constantly in football withdrawal during the offseason, but they really mean nothing.  There will be several teams that will end up better than advertised and there will be several that will be worse than advertised.  Still, it does provide for some interesting discussion, nothing more.