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It’s hard not to be in a good mood today–yes, even me. The sun, at least for now, is shining and temperatures are moderate. I’m actually going to be doing something productive and unique (besides this, of course) later today–more to come, I promise. And for the first time in my lifetime the championship of baseball resides in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
I have minimal personal ties to the city, but I universally admire and respect those I know who do. Milwaukee’s also the smallest media market in major league baseball, so as the sport is seemingly on a collision court with a lockout that is tied to a coalition of smaller market owners desperately contending there is an existential need for a salary cap any argument that it’s media rights fees that have handicapped them versus their own relative incompetence is in my book completely dismissed. As someone who built a pretty respectable career despite having equally minimal financial support and a degree from what so many arrogantly look down as a marginal state university campus with a climate (and an unquenchable thirst for beer) on a par with Milwaukee, I’m especially giddy for another example of a underdog emerging triumphant.
My Chicago-based colleague has already gone overboard in documenting exactly how and why the Brewers now have exactly as many world championships this century as his beloved neighbors 90 miles due south and I’m certain still more detailed rationalizations lie ahead. Suffice to say last night’s clincher was a microcosm of a 114-win season where they lost just twice in a dominant post-season–on paper, about as dominant a playoff run as we saw from basketball’s Knicks this past spring that also brought to an end a drought of more than half a century. A shutout performance from who is now indisputably baseball’s best young pitcher in Jacob Misiorowski, timely hitting from a team of relative unknowns, castoffs and up-and-comers like William Contreras, Cooper Pratt and Jake Bauers and savvy managing by company man Pat Murphy, only elevated to the top spot after franchise loyalist Craig Counsell answered the Cubs’ monetary siren song and now holds the trophy that Counsell still dreams of–a first-time accomplishment for someone born in the same year as me. What’s not to love about that?
I suspect there’s even more giddiness being felt by a Milwaukee native who may have been an infant when the Braves won their only title during their 13-year pit stop between Boston and Atlanta but who may have been slightly more aware than the typical kid in a stroller because the father he shares a name with just happened to be a member of that team. He was admittedly pre-occupied earlier in the evening when he shared what on most other days would have been overly depressing that YAHOO! Sports’ Teddy Ricketson shared:
Ernie Johnson has announced that he will step down as host of “Inside the NBA” after the 2026-2027 NBA season. Johnson, 70, said the decision came down to the fact that he used to pride himself on the preparation he put into the show, but if that prep work ever felt like a challenge instead of a joy, he would know he needed to step away. “After 37 seasons, it’s time.” The “Inside the NBA” host also said that he has been dealing with heart issues for the last two years. Johnson mentioned he had bypass surgery 14 months ago, and he is still “trying to get this thing to beat exactly the way it should.”
And as Ricketson reminded, with Charles Barkley’s pre-season admission to Bill Simmons that “(m)e and Ernie are a package deal…if he says he’s done, I’m gone.”–along with the fact that the pre-game version of the show he made this announcement on has already been retitled as NBA TIP-OFF–it’s to me crystal clear that assuming Kenny Smith and/or Shaquille O’Neal want to stay around at all they will do as official parts of the ESPN family as parts of a still-confounded search for an ideal studio show that seems to believe Malika Andrews and Ramona Shelburne have mass appeal chemistry.
Fortunately, Johnson has not closed the door for further appereances later this year, particularly as the first March Madness to fall wholly under a unified Skydance Sports umbrella approaches for his actual employer-in-name TNT Sports (kinda suspect that unit will be fully dissolved and assimiliated by then) and the NBA playoffs loom which allowed the quartet an extended run during the Knicks’ relentless surge will provide a deservedly larger stage for his ultimate victory lap. Ironically, the fact that ESPN announced just before the regular seasons started a more aggressive scheduling of the show during the fall and winter dog days now appears in hindsight to be opportunities to showcase and test potential replacements or even completely new teams. There will be ample time ahead to mourn the de facto passing of this era, but today won’t be one of them, and I’m certain Johnson is anything but melancholy himself.
I would politely urge that a similarly optimistic ‘tude be considered by the firestorm of complainers who have taken the WNBA and pretty much everyone associated with it to task for what they see as a monumental f-ck-up that has reduced what could be the coronation of another league champion to a time slot where it will jockey for viewership with THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS or LET’S MAKE A DEAL and THE PRICE IS RIGHT depending upon your time zone. THE ATHLETIC’s staff has been working overtime with exasperated observations. Like this more nuanced one from Candace Buckner that originally dropped yesterday:
The afternoons are great for small pleasures but not at all suitable for a potentially deciding championship game in a billion-dollar sports league. The WNBA’s Game 6 in Atlanta, which will tip off at 12:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, isn’t some quirky matinee on the sports calendar. It’s a missed opportunity … for the NBA…It’s the NBA’s owners, who control 42 percent of the WNBA, who are testing the limits of the W’s rapid growth and not understanding how a 12:30 p.m. tip reverts the league to the dark ages. It’s commissioner Adam Silver, who has previously gotten involved in the league’s business dealings because he cares about the bottom line, not forcibly taking the reins by rescheduling an NBA regular-season game to a later date so that a WNBA championship matchup could net a wider TV audience.
Her colleague Brian Hamilton screamed even louder into the abyss this morning:
The sun rose above Union Square on Monday, with cable car bells chiming just hours before Game 5 of the WNBA Finals, and nobody had a clue where Game 6 would be played or when. This is a statement of actual fact. It is also unbelievable. Anyone who cared about a riveting championship round — attendance figures and television ratings suggest more than a few people do — had no idea where the league was heading.
And here is the solution everyone arrived at, once they stopped stepping on all the rakes: A day game. Someone may win a WNBA championship after tipping off at 12:30 p.m. on a weekday, and that someone may be a team from the West Coast whose extremely devoted fans can just about squeeze breakfast in beforehand. Inexcusably obtuse planning, astoundingly bad optics, and most of all a wildly crappy thing to do to the people who consume your product, all during the biggest showcase of the sport. A time for celebration now tagged with a punchline. Slow claps all around.
Judging by the youthful look of Hamilton’s thumnail pic and his basketball-centric CV, I strongly suspect he has had little experience with the joys of weekday post-season baseball and certainly no recollection of an era when the World Series was played exclusively in those conditions. It felt like a holiday and a vailable excuse for real fans to play hooky or for concerned teachers rolled a television cart into a classroom so students can watch. Judging by the storyline of the HAPPY DAYS episode dedicated to that aforementioned 1957 World Series or even my own experience more than a decade later watching The Amazin’ Mets I can speak even all these years later to how special and memorable those bonding experiences were.
These days no such arrangements need to be made; access for anyone who has any ties to Balhalla or the ATL can click on a Peacock icon and watch. You might have been “forced” to subscribe when they had exclusive wild card baseball afternoon games roughly a month ago so your “temporary” subscription probably hasn’t lapsed. And based on the way Versant and Peacock report viewership these days with device-inclusive metrics from suppliers like Adobe Analytics I don’t fall into the cap of doomsayers who seem to believe viewership and engagement will be as negatively impacted as the kneejerk reaction seems to be. Ya know, Thursday Night Football and a GHOSTS Halloween special aren’t exactly chopped liver competition.
No doubt the league–especially outgoing commissioner Cathy Englebert–handled this horribly. It’s especially easy for an overly sensitive and castigated league fan base to call this blatant misogyny. But somehow almost 18,000 people will fill these empty seats if only for the swag and honestly, in this day anyone who truly cares can find a way to watch (and, now, be counted). They did it in the HAPPY DAYS generation for those long-ago Braves. They’re here again. Deal with it.
Until next time…