With yesterday's game being rained out, is this game seven or game eight? I say seven, but I'm happy to be corrected by baseball traditionalists.
Tonight's game is the first we'll see of our Fightin' Jays on television in 2005, on Rogers Sportsnet and mlb.tv (for free) tonight at 7:15.
The bad news is that we won't be seeing our new play-by-play man or any of his rumored co-hosts tonight; Sportsnet is picking up the YES Network feed. At least that could lead to some unintentional hilarity, like the time the Yankee broadcasters made fun of Josh Phelps for not having a "baseball name", only to watch him cream the Yankees pitching staff throughout the game.
The game is on the Fan as well, so you can hit mute on the TV and dial up Tom, Jerry and Mike if the YES-men start to get to you.
Tonight also presents a bizarro-world scenario, fresh from my dreams: the Jays are in first place, and the Yanks are in last. Sure, it's Spring Training, and we all know that Spring Training Games Don't Mean Anything, but doesn't it feel good?
Maybe we'll get some answers tonight, if we're facing a Yankee team full of the leftovers from their farm system or guys we've never heard of or season ticket holders or something, then we'll know that their languishing at the bottom of the standings is just an illusion.
I'm hoping that tonight's tilt will be in high definition -- Rogers' commitment to hi-def is impressive, with all of the Jays home games being broadcast that way, and I imagine that they'd pick up hi-def feeds of away games whenever and wherever possible. In this case, it's up to YES; I guess we'll find out tonight if they rented a hi-def setup or trucked one down just for this game.
I can't recall what the Yankees' Spring Training home field looks like, but I'd be shocked if the lighting were as good as at the Rogers Centre. A big part of why the Jays games look so damn good on Sportsnet is that killer lighting in there. I know, I rave about this stuff too often -- but am I the only one here who has merged his love of home theatre and baseball?
Having just upgraded my speakers after a decade with the last ones (and I'm in the middle of breaking them in -- there's nothing like cranking up the stereo every morning before you leave the house), I'm going to take this opportunity to ask Rogers to do something about the live sound from the Dome.
The picture looks great. The broadcasts are slick without being overly showy or flashy, which is just how I like 'em. I think we're really spoiled by the coverage delivered by the Sportsnet team, and so I'm a little hesitant to mention what I see as a real flaw in it because I don't want to seem ungrateful. But what we're getting in terms of sound just isn't up to the level of the rest of it. I don't think it's due to incompetence or negligence; rather, I think that we're still getting a sound mix designed to be clear and recognizable through a tinny speaker on a small television. And that's fair, but when you're putting out a broadcast designed to look great on a gigantic, high quality screen (and does it ever look good), shouldn't the sound match up with that? I understand that the crazy acoustics at the Rogers Centre probably add another obstacle, and the frequently tiny crowds are surely hard to mic.
I'm not a sound expert, at least, not any further than setting up a killer home theatre, and I can't give any advice or lend any problem-solving skills to Rogers. And if the sound stays the same I'll still be watching. But with an upgrade to the sound to bring it up to the level of the glorious picture being delivered to us would elevate the Sportsnet coverage from just great to genuinely amazing.
Of course, the problem with making the broadcasts perfect is that we'll all stay home and watch them instead of going to the park.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20050310110725797