Alex Rodriguez won't call Mets game on ESPN 'Sunday Night Baseball'
Alex Rodriguez won't call Mets games for ESPN's "Sunday Night Baseball" while he's involved with a group trying to purchase the team. Credit: Getty Images/Thearon W. Henderson
Many eyes will be focused on the Mets when they take the field on July 26 for ESPN’s first "Sunday Night Baseball" telecast of the shortened 2020 season. One pair that won’t: the prominent ESPN analyst and three-time AL MVP who’s trying to buy the team.
Alex Rodriguez, who is involved in a group that is vying to purchase the Mets, will not call Mets vs. Braves later this month — or, quite possibly, any other Mets games on the network this season.
ESPN’s "Wednesday Night Baseball" team of Jon Sciambi and Chipper Jones — a Hall of Famer who joined ESPN earlier this year after dominating the Mets during his playing career with the Braves — will call the Mets-Braves game on national TV (as well as ESPN's broadcast of the Mets-Braves Opening Day game on July 24 alongside Rick Sutcliffe.) Rodriguez and play-by-play man Matt Vasgersian instead will call the second game of ESPN’s Sunday night doubleheader, between the Dodgers and the Giants.
As of now, July 26 is the Mets’ only scheduled appearance on Sunday Night Baseball. However, more games could be flexed into that timeslot depending on how the season goes. If that happens, ESPN would evaluate the situation on a “case-by-case” basis, according to Mark Gross, the network’s senior vice president of production and remote events.
“Right now, I think we’d certainly shy away from having Alex do a Met game, just so we don’t put him in a bad position, put the Mets in a bad position,” Gross said. “We certainly don’t want to put Alex or Matt in a difficult position given what’s going on.”
Rodriguez deflected questions about the Mets and his group’s bid, saying that there are “limitations on what I can talk about.”
Rodriguez’s group includes his fiancee, Jennifer Lopez; Mike Repole, the VitaminWater founder and a Nassau County resident; Vinnie Viola, owner of the NHL’s Florida Panthers and a Brooklyn native; and investors from J.P. Morgan. Other known bidders include hedge-fund billionaire and Great Neck native Steve Cohen, who had a deal to purchase the Mets before it fell apart in February; and a group headed by Josh Harris and David Blitzer, owners of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers and NHL’s Devils.
This is not the first time ESPN has had to deal with a conflict of interest between one of its "Sunday Night Baseball" analysts and an MLB team. Rodriguez also has served as a special advisor to the Yankees, and former boothmate Jessica Mendoza was hired by the Mets in March 2019 as a baseball operations adviser. At the time, Gross said the network was “comfortable with where we’re at and that these guys are professional and can be objective.”
Mendoza no longer is with the Mets or on the "Sunday Night Baseball" broadcast crew, instead becoming an analyst for weeknight games and ESPN’s studio shows.
Rodriguez and Vasgersian will call each "SNB" game from a studio at ESPN’s headquarters in Bristol, Connecticut. Buster Olney will report from either the stadium, the studio or his home, depending on the situation.
ESPN won’t have its own crews at the games, instead relying on multiple camera feeds from the stadium to put the telecast together in the control room. The audio feeds will come from the stadium as well, meaning the telecasts will feature the fake crowd noise, public-address announcers and organists that most if not all teams will employ during games.
“We're not looking to fool anybody,” Gross said. “We realize there's no fans there. But by having a little crowd nat sound below the announcers, just seems to make it work and doesn't sound quite so hollow when we're doing the games.”
Nick Klopsis is Newsday.com's sports editor. He often can be found studying NFL and college football film for his latest draft breakdown.
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