ESPN during its "Sunday Night Baseball" coverage can become "so focused on making the prime-time showcase a special telecast that it adds bells and whistles that come to eclipse the game it’s ostensibly covering," according to Phil Rosenthal of the CHICAGO TRIBUNE. During Brewers-Cubs Sunday night, ESPN aired an "extended Alex Rodriguez interview" -- roughly 2½ minutes with Brewers RF Christian Yelich that was "taped at least six weeks earlier" in Spring Training. While the interview was running, the top of the third inning began, and a "split screen abruptly opened just long enough to show" Brewers SS Orlando Arcia hit a single, then the screen "immediately shut again." Incidents like this are "not isolated" for ESPN, and it "gets more noticeable each week." The stories told by the booth "go on and on, sometimes at the expense of what’s happening on the field" (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, 5/14).
GO, CUBS, GO: In Chicago, Paul Sullivan wrote the Cubs "apparently are ESPN’s Team." Sunday marked the Cubs second straight appearance on "SNB," and they will be on again next week when they play the Nationals in DC. The team will also appear on "SNB" June 16 when they play the Dodgers in L.A. That will make it "four appearances in seven weeks, or the kind of exposure that once drew complaints from baseball fans tired of seeing the Yankees and Red Sox every other week." Meanwhile, the Brewers were playing in their first Sunday night game in six years (CHICAGOTRIBUNE.com, 5/12).
