If a court judge wanted to do the right thing, he would
"put an end to the dueling lawsuits that threaten to rip
apart the relationship" between ESPN and MLB, according to
Ed Sherman of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. ESPN MLB analyst Joe
Morgan: "I'm disappointed that it has gotten to this point.
I think ESPN has been very, very good for baseball. And
baseball has provided ESPN with some great programming."
ESPN "acknowledges" that it could have handled moving MLB
Sunday broadcasts from ESPN to ESPN2 better. ESPN Exec
VP/Programming Dick Glover: "Do we wish we would have called
them quicker? Yes. Have we apologized to them? Yes. In
any way that they feel insulted, we apologize. But at the
same time, we've gone out of our way to do favors for them
through the years." Sherman: "Baseball should put its ego
aside and allow those Sunday September games to be moved to
ESPN2, where the potential audience is virtually the same.
... ESPN should do whatever it can to make baseball happy
and patch up the relationship. Obviously, it hasn't gone
far enough" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 5/28). In Houston, David
Barron reports that part of MLB's countersuit against ESPN
claims that the network "regularly exceeds the amount of
game highlight footage its is allowed to show on its nightly
news shows." ESPN spokesperson Chris LaPlaca: "We were
surprised [by that allegation] to some degree. At the same
time, we have on occasion exceeded [the limit on highlights
use], but the end result is to give more coverage to
baseball" (HOUSTON CHRONICLE, 5/28).
