MLB Network to debut today
The NFL and NBA have full-time television networks up and running, and starting at 3 p.m. PST today Major League Baseball will follow.
In the L.A. market, the MLB Network will be available on Channel 276 (470 in HD) on Time Warner Cable; on Channel 429 on Charter Communications; on Channel 119 on Cox Cable; on 86 on Verizon (586 in HD); and on Channel 213 on DirectTV. The Dish Network is not carrying the MLB Network, which will be available in 50 million homes at the start.
The NFL Network reaches only 42 million homes because it is enmeshed in a dispute with several large cable companies, including Time Warner, on whether it would be placed on a sports tier that requires an extra monthly fee.
ESPN, the most-watched sports cable station, reaches 98 million homes. The MLB Network, in part to forestall the access problems of the NFL Network, has made part-owners of several cable companies, including Time Warner, DirecTV and Cox, MLB Network President Tony Petitti said.
During the season, the MLB Network will telecast 26 games on Thursday nights and every night will have a live studio show offering cut-ins to in-progress games plus analysis beginning about 3 p.m. and continuing until about 11.
Tonight’s programming will kick off with “Hot Stove Live,” a studio show coming from MLB studios in Secaucus, N.J., geared to talk about off-season trades, free-agent signings and, of course, rumors.
The cornerstone of the first day’s programming will be a rebroadcast of the 1956 World Series game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees in which Don Larsen threw a perfect game. After the game broadcast at 4 p.m., Larsen and his battery mate, Yogi Berra, will talk about the game.
This game hasn’t been seen since its original airing.
Petitti said the game had disappeared from network vaults, adding: “It came to us through a baseball outsider who had a copy. This copy only starts in the second inning. It’s a kinescope film recorded off the original TV broadcast.”
Vin Scully called the second half of the Larsen perfect game. Mel Allen did the first half.
Serving as host of the “Hot Stove” show Thursday will be Victor Rojas. Analysts will be Barry Larkin, Al Leiter and Harold Reynolds, with reporters Trenni Kusnierek and Hazel Mae, baseball experts Jon Heyman and Tom Verducci and guest Jimmy Rollins of the Philadelphia Phillies.
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