YouTube Classic: MLB Network "All In One Place"

One of the coolest commercials I have ever seen. Love the way they make it look like all these great players were all in studio 42 and interacting with one another. Talk about nostalgia. Best part, the appearance of Robin Yount.

Peter Gammons Leaving ESPN After 20 Years

Today is a sad day, Peter Gammons one of the absolute best baseball writers and TV personalities for ESPN and ESPN.com will be leaving ESPN after the Winter Meetings end this week. Gammons is 64 years old and had been with ESPN since 1989, before that Gammons wrote for the Boston Globe and Sports Illustrated. In my opinion Gammons is the smartest and most insightful member of the baseball media. As long as I can remember having cable and ESPN he has been the guy giving me all my baseball insider news year after year. And with a lot of the shit personalities on Baseball Tonight and various other ESPN baseball coverage Gammons will be sorely missed. Along with Keith Law, Gammons was the reason I finally caved in and got a subscription to ESPN The Magazine just to get the ESPN.com Insider access. Now it looks like Keith Law is the only guy I will be reading. Sure they have Buster Olney, Jayson Stark, Jerry Crasnick and Tim Kurkjian. But none of those guys can even hold Gammons jock. Oh, and besides being one of the best baseball writers ever, Peter is a big fan of indie rock, blues rock, plays guitar and one of his favorite bands is Pearl Jam. What is not to love about this guy?

No word has been made yet if Peter is just leaving ESPN or if he is actually retiring. I'm really hoping that he joins MLB Network and writes columns on MLB.com. Peter, please do all of us baseball fans who need your knowledge and join MLB Network. Baseball just won't be the same without your expertise.

Costas Added To MLB Network Lineup

Well it was rumored for quite sometime and today it became reality. Bob Costas has officially signed on with the MLB Network. I have really enjoyed the MLB Network since it debut on January 1st and now adding Costas to an already great group of on-air talent only makes the network that much better. However, this also put an end to the great "Costas Now" show on HBO since Costas had to leave that network to join MLB Network. Costas will stay on doing his normal duties for NBC though.

The main thing Costas will be doing at MLB Network is hosting his own hour long show "MLB Network Studio 42 with Bob Costas". The first episode will air this Thursday and his first guest will be Dodgers Manager Joe Torre. Bob will also be hosting some of the original programming and will do play-by-play for "select" regular season games on MLB Network. Hells yes! Costas is easily one of my all-time favorite baseball play-by-play guys. I can still remember the good old days when NBC had the World Series and Costas, Uecker and Morgan used to man the booth. So much better then the crap that is Fox's team of Joe Buck and Tim McCarver.

Finally! My MLB Network Works!

Since my move at the end of December and now being a Time Warner Cable customer and not a Charter Cable customer I have not had the pleasure of viewing the new MLB Network. I was so excited to do so since back in October when I heard about the launch of the channel. For some reason the channel was not coming through our digital cable box at the house, I finally called and they decided they had to send a technician out. Well not only did they send one, it was a TWO technician job. Basically it was a "signal" problem the nice gentlemen from Time Warner told me. The splitters that were in the house (this is my future mother in-laws house, my fiancee and I are staying with her temporarily until our wedding in May and we get our own house) were bad and they simplified things threw in a new splitter, a few cables and then everything worked!

My impressions of the network thus far are positive. I have enjoyed the classic games that I have seen and really like the Prime 9 series show. I saw Prime 9 on centerfielders and all-time HR's. They had a little to much Red Sox stuff on this weekend. A lot of various shows that focused on Red Sox history and such, but it's better then a bunch of Cubs or Yankees shows I guess.

I'm really looking forward tomorrow to seeing my first episode of "Hot Stove" their live show that airs each weeknight from 6 to 7. Hopefully they will have some Brewers news to report. Also tomorrow they are going to have some Hall of Fame induction selection show on in the afternoon that I believe will re-run at night.

So all in all, I love it like I thought I would. And I also look forward to seeing much more of Hazel Mae, who gives me a weird feeling. Like when I used to climb the rope in gym class.

MLB Network Coming 1/1/09, Baseball Fans Everywhere Say; "It's About F*****g Time!"

This is actually an older story but there was so much other Brewers stuff going on I put off writing about it but now there is actually a Brewers tie-in to this story. Starting January 1st of 2009 a television network dedicated entirely to the great game of baseball will launch. Comcast, DirecTV, Time Warner and Cox Communications have a minority ownership in the network and because of that it will be in many more homes then the NFL Network. And yes don't worry Wisconsin subscribers to Charter Communications cable service the network will be carried!

As far as content on the network it will air 26 regular season games most likely as a "Saturday Night Game of The Week", some World Baseball Classic 2009 games, plenty of archival material and a nightly news and highlight show similar (but probably better) then ESPN's "Baseball Tonight".

As for who will be the on-air personalities of the MLB Network? Well former Brewers play-by-play announcer Matt Vasgersian will probably be host of the nightly show and it is all but confirmed that the Brewers on-field reporter from last year on FSN-WI and Wisconsin native Trenni Kusnierek will leave FSN to be part of MLB Network. It kind of sucks to lose Trenni after 1 year, she was very good at her job as a reporter/interviewer. She seemed to have a real love and passion for the Brewers and the game. It also didn't hurt that she was easy on the male eye. Some other names "rumored" to be in negotiations with the network are Hazel Mae (NESN) and Bob Costas (NBC/HBO).

I am super psyched for the launch of an all baseball all the time channel. The games they show will be good games, the nightly highlight show should blow "Baseball Tonight" out of the water and being able to see "classic" games will be a breath of fresh air since ESPN Classic hardly EVER shows baseball because they are to busy showing billiards, poker and bowling.