1. I have said many times over the years that every Major League Baseball player should be miked up for every single game.
Obviously, this is a tad extreme, and I’d be happy with one or two players miked up for every game.
So I was thrilled to see Reds first baseman Joey Votto miked up for Thursday’s Opening Day game against the Braves. I was shocked to see that Votto was also interviewed DURING THE GAME.
This will help “grow” baseball way more than absurd streaming deals that shut out local fans, but I’m not going to write about that. I’m going to keep things positive.
What Votto did was important for a few reasons. He got baseball some much needed attention. He was highly entertaining. And he hopefully opened the door for other players to see that they shouldn’t be hesitant to be miked up during the game.
Among the highlights made by Wired Votto was this exchange with Braves second baseman Ozzie Albies in which Votto did some crowdsourcing about getting a gold tooth:
Votto also caused ESPN’s Tim Kurkjian to nearly pass out when he popped out to the pitcher for the first time in 8,132 career plate appearances.
Before the game even started, Votto was being funny on Instagram and trolling the Bengals over an image of him high-fiving Joe Burrow:
He also provided one hell of a pregame hype video in his Instagram stories:
And the 38-year-old also showed that TikTok just isn’t for the kids:
Every single major league player needs to take a lesson from Joey Votto. This is how you win over fans.
2. This week's SI Media Podcast features a conversation with Adnan Virk of the MLB Network and the NHL Network.
Topics covered include the start of the Major League Baseball season and my issues with MLB’s exclusive streaming deals, Tiger Woods playing in the Masters, what we’d like to see Elon Musk change at Twitter, HBO’s Winning Time, East Coast bias, Bill Raftery, Mike Trout, Chris Russo’s renaissance, Jim Miller’s excellent HBO book, the passing of Seinfeld‘s Estelle Harris and much more.
Virk, who hosts the Cinephile podcast, also had very strong opinions on the Will Smith–Chris Rock Oscar’s controversy and what the Academy Awards got wrong.
Following the conversation with Virk, Sal Licata from WFAN and SNY in New York joins Jimmy for the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment. This week’s segment features Jimmy’s thoughts on his podcast the previous week with Greg Gumbel, recent Apple reviews, whether Jimmy was too quick to block a Twitter follower, the sports media reaction to Tiger Woods, MLB’s Opening Day, even more complains about MLB’s streaming deals and more.
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch the SI Media Podcast on YouTube.
3. Fox made it official Friday, naming Joe Davis as Joe Buck’s replacement as the network’s lead MLB voice.
Meanwhile, Apple TV+ on Thursday announced its broadcast crews for the exclusive Friday-night doubleheaders.
And it was announced that the first two games of MLB’s ridiculous deal with Peacock to exclusively air a weekly game on Sundays at 11:30 a.m. ET will also air on NBC. After that, all the suckers have to pay up for Peacock.
4. Anthony Edwards and the Timberwolves embarrassed themselves Thursday night just so the star guard could get 50 points, which he did not.
5. Diamondbacks outfielder Seth Beer hit a game-winning home run last night ON NATIONAL BEER DAY!
6. I always say that Twitter is an awful place (hey, follow me!) and I stand by that, but then you see something like Julia Louis-Dreyfus and J.J. Watt interacting and think for a split second that it’s not so bad. Especially since Watt had the correct take.
