It's taken me a while to realize it, but ESPN is ridiculously imbalanced in its baseball coverage. Today the Yankees beat the Red Sox for the fifth consecutive game. ESPN has dubbed this sweep "Boston Massacre II," in a tip of the hat to one of the more famous incidents in United States history. We the viewers are subjected to segment after segment of talking heads and interviews wondering aloud about what in the world is wrong with the Red Sox as they lost game after game. In the meantime there are any number of actually competitive games they ignore. A prime example is today.
Today the A's fell behind 8-0 after two innings. They then proceeded to mount what became a tie for the largest comeback in A's history, eventually winning the game 12-10. So on Baseball Tonight (BBTN), ESPN's 40 minute show devoted to extended highlights and analysis of MLB action we might expect more than 30 seconds on the game. Instead BBTN leads with Yankees-Red Sox, including numerous interviews and some analysis. They then breeze through a few other games, eventually reaching the A's game. They start the highlights after the score is 8-2, and show maybe four pitches. They show an altercation between a Blue Jays' pitcher and manager, and then move on. And right now, during the next segment, I am watching the same interviews with Sox and Yankees players I saw at the beginning of the show, and they are talking even more about "Boston Massacre II," replete with dramatic music and gravitas-laden narration. As a white anglo-saxon Protestant male, this may be as close as I ever come to feeling disenfranchised. It sucks. Viva la revolution!
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