Baseball HOFer Mike Schmidt will join the Phillies' broadcast team on Comcast SportsNet Philadelphia in '14 "for all 13 Sunday home games at Citizens Bank Park," according to Ryan Lawrence of the PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS. Schmidt "will join play-by-play man Tom McCarthy" and either Matt Stairs or Jamie Moyer "in a three-man booth for the home Sunday broadcasts." Schmidt "worked as an in-game analyst for the cable network PRISM" in '90. Schmidt is scheduled to visit Phillies Spring Training in mid-March and is "likely to jump into the broadcast for a game" while in Clearwater. Moyer "will broadcast 109 games (including spring training), while Stairs will be on the air for 108 total games." Moyer and Stairs "will work together for 30 games," and "none of those 30 games will occur on home Sundays, meaning the network will never employ a four-man booth" (PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS, 2/26). In Philadelphia, Bob Brookover wrote "exactly why" CSN Philadelphia decided not to bring back announcers Gary Matthews and Chris Wheeler "remains a mystery to everyone except the people who made the decision, and they'd rather not talk about it." CSN Philadelphia President & GM Brian Monihan on Monday said, "Anything regarding Sarge and Wheels I'd refer to the Phillies. They are Phillies employees." Brookover: "Both men deserve a better public explanation than that." Moyer, Stairs, and McCarthy also deserve "a chance to prove what they can do." It is "just too bad the transition from one team to the other was so clumsily handled" (PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER, 2/25).
