Let the games begin – MLB returns on ESPN
Whether you’re a player, a coach, a sportswriter or a fan, Opening Day in baseball is a date marked prominently on your calendar.
As well it should be. It not only signifies the official coming of spring, but also heralds the onset of 162 games of tape-measure shots, highlight-reel catches, dominant pitching performances and clutch hits. For anyone connected to the game, the first week of April is sheer bliss.
Just ask Aaron Boone. The former major league infielder and current ESPN analyst, who will be in the booth when the sports cablenet broadcasts the season opener between the Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday, April 2, still gets the butterflies and nerves that come with the regular season’s first contest, albeit somewhat differently now.
“You know, you got so excited as a player to get to spring training,” he says, “and then spring training kind of gets long and so you start to long for the start of the season. And then getting up north and getting your locker set up – really it’s a kid waking up on Christmas morning or that first day of Little League. It was that similar feeling, that excitement, the optimism. You know, the butterflies, the nerves that go with it, I think similar but different. You have all those emotions and feelings as a broadcaster, too, as we’re kicking off our season, so there’s that excitement and that anxiousness and the nerves and kind of kicking off the rust a little bit. So yeah, it’s similar but different.”
Sunday’s Opening Day slate comprises three games, starting on ESPN in early afternoon (ET) as Gary Sanchez and the New York Yankees pay a visit to Evan Longoria and the American League East rival Tampa Bay Rays. Then in late afternoon on ESPN2, it’s a clash of National League West foes as Paul Goldschmidt and the Arizona Diamondbacks play host to Buster Posey and the San Francisco Giants. Finally, back on ESPN in prime time, it’s Kris Bryant and the Cubs beginning their defense of their 2016 world championship against Yadier Molina and the NL Central rival Cardinals at Busch Stadium in St. Louis.