It’s already hard enough to catch MLB on TV short of subscribing to one of the select carriers that provides Bally.

But why do broadcasters on ESPN and TNT insist on talking about anything but the actual baseball game taking place? Between Sunday Night Baseball (which used to be outstanding a decade ago) and watching on TNT tonight, the announcers often no longer even bother to announce who is batting, what occurred their last time up, whether a pitch was a ball or a strike, batting averages, strategy, player facts, …essentially anything to do with the game. Broadcasts seem to have devolved to meaningless in-game interviews and side chatter that has entirely replaced covering the game. If a player makes contact the announcer may interrupt the nonsense to interject with “Martinez lifts one to deep center”, but that’s as much as we get.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t mind announcers debating which stadium serves up the best hot dog or how high a pitch count should go between pitches as they’ve done historically, but today’s broadcasting comes off as disinterested in the game and seems desperate to provide some overlapping content to distract the viewer.