Wednesday Night Baseball - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Wednesday Night Baseball is a live game telecast of Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball is the highest level of professional baseball in the United States and Canada, consisting of teams that play in the National League and the American League...

that airs every Wednesday night during the regular season on ESPN

ESPN

Entertainment and Sports Programming Network, commonly known as ESPN, is an American global cable television network focusing on sports-related programming including live and pre-taped event telecasts, sports talk shows, and other original programming....

and is also available in high definition

High-definition television

High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

on ESPNHD. The game starts at 7pm ET

North American Eastern Time Zone

The Eastern Time Zone of the United States and Canada is a time zone that falls mostly along the east coast of North America. Its UTC time offset is −5 hrs during standard time and −4 hrs during daylight saving time...

, following SportsCenter
SportsCenter
SportsCenter is a daily sports news television show, and the flagship program of American cable network ESPN since the network launched on September 7, 1979. Originally broadcast only daily, SportsCenter is now shown up to twelve times a day, replaying the day's scores and highlights from major...

, and usually lasts around three hours (six counting the Monday Night Baseball

Monday Night Baseball

Monday Night Baseball is a live game telecast of Major League Baseball that airs most Monday nights during the regular season on ESPN and is also available in high definition on ESPNHD. The official name of the game is Monday Night Baseball presented by Vonage. The game starts at 7 p.m...

game every September at the start of the NFL

National Football League

The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...

season) with an hour long Baseball Tonight
Baseball Tonight
Baseball Tonight is a program that airs on ESPN. The show, which recapitulates the day's Major League Baseball action, has been on the air since 1990.-Air times:...

following the game leading up to the 11pm ET SportsCenter (1am ET for September games with Baseball Tonight moving to ESPN2

ESPN2

ESPN2 is an American sports cable television network owned by ESPN. The channel debuted on October 1, 1993.Originally nicknamed "the deuce," ESPN2 was initially branded as a network for a younger generation of sports fans featuring edgier graphics as well as extreme sports like motocross,...

at 12am ET). The official name is ESPN Wednesday Night Baseball presented by Captain Morgan
Captain Morgan
Captain Morgan is a brand of rum produced by alcohol conglomerate Diageo. It is named after the 17th-century, Welsh privateer of the Caribbean, Sir Henry Morgan...

.

Wednesday Night Baseball is not exclusive to ESPN. Local sports networks may still air the game. ESPNEWS

ESPNEWS

ESPNEWS , launched on November 1, 1996, is a 24-hour-a-day sports news television channel...

is seen on ESPN during the game in the teams' designated markets, unless local broadcasters choose not to televise the game. ESPN's blackout (100-mile radius from the stadium, and all of a team's designated market) can be lifted in the latter scenario. On double-headers in September, due to the broadcast of Monday Night Football

Monday Night Football

Monday Night Football is a live broadcast of the National Football League on ESPN. From to it aired on ABC. Monday Night Football was, along with Hallmark Hall of Fame, and the Walt Disney anthology television series, one of the longest running prime time commercial network television series...

, either one of the Wednesday Night Baseball games will co-exist with the local markets' carriers and will not always be subject to blackout.

Commentators

A complete list of broadcasters, with their period of tenure on the show (beginning years of each season shown).

Current

Chris Berman: (play-by-play, 1990–present, select games)
Nomar Garciaparra
Nomar Garciaparra
Anthony Nomar Garciaparra is a former Major League Baseball player. After playing parts of 9 seasons as an All-Star shortstop for the Boston Red Sox, he played third base, first base, and designated hitter for the Oakland Athletics, first base and third base for the Los Angeles Dodgers, and...

: (analyst, 2010–present)
Pedro Gomez: (field reporter, 2011–present)
Dave O'Brien: (play-by-play, 2008–present)
Sean McDonough
Sean McDonough
Sean McDonough is an American sportscaster, currently employed by ESPN.-Early life and career:The son of Boston Globe sportswriter Will McDonough, Sean graduated from Syracuse University in 1984. It was in Syracuse where McDonough began his broadcasting career in 1982 as the play-by-play announcer...

: (play-by-play, 2011–present, for September games only)
Rick Sutcliffe: (analyst, 2008–2010, for regular broadcasts; 2011–present, for September games only)
Aaron Boone
Aaron Boone
Aaron John Boone is a former Major League Baseball infielder whose famous home run off Boston Red Sox pitcher Tim Wakefield won the 2003 American League Championship Series for the New York Yankees. He played for the Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees, Cleveland Indians, Florida Marlins, Washington...

: (analyst, 2010–present, for September games only)
Tim Kurkjian
Tim Kurkjian
Tim Kurkjian is a Major League Baseball analyst on ESPN's Baseball Tonight and SportsCenter. He is also a contributor to ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com. He guests on Mike and Mike in the Morning on Thursdays at 7:44 AM, discussing the latest in happenings in Major League Baseball...

: (field reporter, 2011–present, for September games only)

Past

Erin Andrews
Erin Andrews
Erin Jill Andrews is an American sportscaster, journalist, and television personality. As of 2011 she is a co-host of the ESPN entertainment show College GameDay and a contributor for Good Morning America on the ABC network...

: (field reporter, 2008)
Bonnie Bernstein: (field reporter, 2007, select games)
Jeff Brantley: (analyst, 2002–2005)
Dave Campbell: (analyst, 1990–2002)
Bob Carpenter
Bob Carpenter (sportscaster)
Bob Carpenter is a long-time sportscaster and current television play-by-play announcer for Major League Baseball's Washington Nationals on MASN.-Biography:Bob Carpenter has been the Washington Nationals broadcaster since 2006....

: (play-by-play, 1990–2004)
Duke Castiglione: (field reporter, 2006)
Orel Hershiser
Orel Hershiser
Orel Leonard Hershiser IV is a former right-handed pitcher in Major League Baseball. He is currently an analyst for Baseball Tonight and Sunday Night Baseball on ESPN and a professional poker player for...

: (analyst, 2001 and 2006–07; 2009–10 for September games)
Buck Martinez: (analyst, 1992–2000 and 2002–05)
Joe Morgan
Joe Morgan
Joe Leonard Morgan is a former Major League Baseball second baseman who played for the Houston Astros, Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants, Philadelphia Phillies, and Oakland Athletics from 1963 to 1984. He won two World Series championships with the Reds in 1975 and 1976 and was also named the...

: (analyst, 1990–2010, select games)
Steve Phillips
Steve Phillips
Steve Phillips is a former American baseball analyst for ESPN and baseball executive. He served as the general manager of the New York Mets from 1997–2003...

: (analyst, 2007)
Jon Sciambi
Jon Sciambi
Jon "Boog" Sciambi is an American sportscaster for ESPN. He has worked extensively as a baseball play-by-play announcer, calling games for ESPN television in 2005 and 2006 and currently on ESPN Radio. Sciambi's nickname, "Boog," was given to him owing to his physical resemblance to former major...

: (play-by-play, 2005)
Dan Shulman
Dan Shulman
Daniel "Dan" Shulman is a Canadian sportscaster, currently employed with the American network ESPN as well as Canadian network TSN....

: (play-by-play, 1995–2007; 2009–10 for September games)
Chris Singleton
Chris Singleton (baseball)
Christopher Verdell Singleton is a former center fielder in Major League Baseball. During his six-year major league career , he played for the Chicago White Sox , Baltimore Orioles , Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Devil Rays . During his playing career, his listed height and weight were 6'2",...

: (analyst, 2010 for September games)

History

The program debuted in 1990

1990 in baseball

-Major League Baseball:*World Series: Cincinnati Reds over Oakland Athletics ; José Rijo, MVP*American League Championship Series MVP Dave Stewart*National League Championship Series co-MVPs: Rob Dibble and Randy Myers...

, when ESPN first acquired MLB rights

Major League Baseball television contracts

The following is a detailed description of the various television networks , rights fees, and announcers who have called Major League Baseball games throughout the years .-United States:...

. From 2000

2000 Major League Baseball season

The 2000 Major League Baseball season ended with the New York Yankees defeating the New York Mets in Game 5 of the World Series, known as the Subway Series because fans could take the Subway to and from every game of the Series. An all-time record 5,693 home runs were hit during the regular season...

to 2005

2005 Major League Baseball season

Click on any series score to link to that series' page.Higher seed had home field advantage during Division Series and League Championship Series.The American League champion had home field advantage during the World Series as a result of the AL victory in the 2005 All-Star...

, Wednesday night baseball doubleheaders usually aired at 7pm ET on ESPN and 10pm ET on ESPN2, though this could have changed depending on ESPN's programming schedule. The second part of the doubleheader was discontinued after 2005 season, however.

Wednesdays also included an afternoon game, called ESPN DayGame which aired typically at 12:30pm or 1pm ET on ESPN, making Wednesdays ESPN's primary day of baseball, as games aired both in the afternoon and in primetime. However, ESPN DayGame was also discontinued following the 2006 season

2006 Major League Baseball season

In , the Major League Baseball season ended with the National League's St. Louis Cardinals winning the World Series with the lowest regular season victory total in history. The American League continued its domination at the All-Star Game by winning its fourth straight game; the A.L. has won nine...

Note: From 1990 till 2005, the Wednesday night telecast appeared as a doubleheader
Doubleheader (television)
Doubleheader is used by network television to refer to two games in any sport aired back-to-back on the same network, even though they do not involve the same two teams . A doubleheader purposely coincides with a league's scheduling of "early" and "late" games...

. That is why there are two pairings of play-by-play commentators and analysts listed from those years.

Resources

External links