Last week’s rants were overloaded with stuff about football; so, today I want to circle back and comment on things happening in other dimensions of the sports world. There is what I consider to be Good News and Bad News around sports broadcasting from last week; I’ll start with the Bad News.
- Former Villanova basketball coach, Jay Wright, announced that he will not be returning to CBS/TNT next March as one of the studio analysts for March Madness. I consider that “Bad News” because I thought he was excellent in that role; his contributions to the discussions were not smothered in coach-speak and they often highlighted a subtlety of the game that had eluded the other commentators. He left the door open about returning to the networks in the future but for now he said he wanted to devote his time and energy to his family and to his role as “Special Assistant to the President of Villanova”.
Bonne chance, Jay Wright – and thank you for your insights …
There are two entries in the “Good News Menu”:
- ESPN announced that they will change up the announcing team for next year’s NBA Finals. Mike Breen will return on play-by-play and Richard Jefferson will return as one of the color commentators. Doris Burke will be replaced by Tim Legler. I won’t pretend that I know enough about Legler as a game analyst to be overjoyed by his ascension into that role; I do know that I will not miss Doris Burke very much in that role. I said here before that I did not think she added value to the telecast with her comments.
- According to a report by Richard Deitsch in The Athletic, FOX Sports will have Ian Darke doing play-by-play next summer for the FIFA World Cup games here in North America. Darke has been associated with soccer broadcasting around the world for the last 30 years or so; he has been a favorite of mine since I first heard him do games back in 2010. I have said here before that no one tunes into a game just to hear the announcer(s) and I stand by that statement. In the case of Ian Darke calling World Cup games, I will be glad to hear his voice on the microphone when I do choose to tune in. The World Cup will expand to 48 teams for the first time in 2026 meaning there will be a total of 104 games in the entire tournament. Ian Darke should have plenty of opportunities to ply his trade next summer.
Moving on … Last week, Kyle Schwarber hit four home runs in a game and had a plate appearance in the 8th inning with a chance to hit a fifth one – – a feat that no one has ever done in MLB. Some interesting historical tidbits came out of that game:
- Only 21 players in MLB history have ever hit four home runs in a game. No player has ever done it twice.
- Schwarber is the fourth Phillies player to do so; Mike Schmidt, Chuck Klein and Ed Delahanty are the other three. The Phillies are the only MLB team to have four players on that rather exclusive list.
- Going into the 2025 season, the last time a player hit four home runs in a single game was in 2017 when JD Martinez did it. In 2025, there have been three players to accomplish this feat – – Nick Kurtz (A’s) and Eugenio Suarez (D-Backs) before Schwarber.
- Schwarber accomplished this feat against the Atlanta Braves pitching staff. Interestingly, when Suarez went deep 4 times in a game earlier this yar, it was also against the Atlanta Braves pitching staff.
- The first player to hit four home runs in a game was Bobby Lowe of the Boston Beaneaters in 1894. In that season, Lowe hit a total of only 17 home runs in 678 plate appearances. In fact, over his 18-year career in MLB, Bobby Lowe only hit 71 home runs meaning he averaged only 3.9 home runs per season – – and yet he got 4 of them in a single game.
- Baseball is a funny game …
Next up …I am sure you have heard and read more than enough about the Cowboys’ decision to trade Micah Parsons to the Packers. I doubt if you care to know my take on who won the trade or how the negotiations with the Cowboys ran off the rails or anything of that sort. But there is an aspect to that situation that I do want to address.
- In the aftermath of the trade, a couple of reports appeared saying that Micah Parsons was a “bad teammate” and that he was a “me first guy”.
Let me be clear; I don’t know Micah Parsons or any other member of the Dallas Cowboys team or coaching staff. I do not even have third hand knowledge of how he fit in with his teammates or did not fit in. Having said that, I have a problem with the reporting here.
Micah Parsons had been part of the Dallas Cowboys organization for four years. Until last weekend, no such reporting was out and about in the land. And yet, we have reporters and commentators who present themselves as “insiders”. So, riddle me this:
- Did they “know” about this malignant aspect of Micah Parsons’ presence on the team all along and fail to tell the story? OR
- Did they “not know” about any of this until last weekend?
It seems to me that neither of the two options above place the putative “insiders” in a favorable light. Either they “hid the story” – – meaning I should be skeptical about some if not all their “reporting” – – or they are not nearly as “inside” as they are made out to be. You make the call …
Finally, an interesting viewpoint by George F. Will:
“The nice part about being a pessimist is that you are constantly being either proven right or pleasantly surprised.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports………