1. Red Sox manager Alex Cora has won over a lot of baseball fans around the country.
Over the weekend, with the Yankees and Red Sox slated for an ESPN Sunday Night Baseball game for the second week in a row, Cora went public with a gripe held by many MLB fans.
Via The Athletic’s Jen McCaffrey, Cora said, “I think it’s too much sometimes. Back-to-back Sunday night games, with all due respect to ESPN, come on. There’s other teams out there and people want to watch them.”
Cora on Red Sox-Yankees: "I think it's too much sometimes. Back-to-back Sunday night games, with all due respect to ESPN, come on. There's other teams out there and people want to watch them."
— Jen McCaffrey (@jcmccaffrey) June 16, 2023
While calling out ESPN for scheduling the Yankees and Red Sox on back-to-back Sunday nights will make Cora a hero to the millions of fans who despise those two teams, there is just one problem.
Yankees–Red Sox games are always the highest-rated games on ESPN's Sunday night schedule.
2. My SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast listeners will be happy to know that Sal Licata, who joins me for the weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment is getting a new shift at WFAN. According to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post, after hosting the overnight show the past three years, Sal will be moving into the 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. slot.
NEWS: Sal Licata will succeed Tiki Barber as Brandon Tierney's partner on mid-days at WFAN, The Post has learned.https://t.co/djnLJEpzUA
— Andrew Marchand (@AndrewMarchand) June 20, 2023
3. Joey Votto returned to the Reds in style last night after a 10-month absence. Not only did he help the team win its ninth game in a row, not only did he help the Reds move into first place in the NL Central, not only did he homer, but he also took a curtain call while dressed as a Viking.
KING HAS RETURNED@JoeyVotto pic.twitter.com/wRBJwUqymN
— Cincinnati Reds (@Reds) June 20, 2023
4. Tight End University, started by George Kittle, Greg Olsen and Travis Kelce, opens up today, and this video explaining just what TEU is about is pretty cool.
Class is back in session today 📝 @te_university pic.twitter.com/ClSwz7yVTb
— NFL Films (@NFLFilms) June 20, 2023
5. In case you missed it Monday because of the holiday, we told you about the most intense competition at the College World Series: Jell-O shots consumed by each fan base. Here is the latest update.
The pace is slowing a little bit we'll see if @LSUbaseball fans have what it takes to rally and run it up! #cws2023 #roccosOmaha pic.twitter.com/cSMlbwjnTF
— CWS Jello Shot Challenge (@CWSShotBoard) June 19, 2023
6. This week's SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation with ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt.
The popular SportsCenter anchor, who is also ESPN’s main golf host, shared his thoughts on the PGA-LIV merger and tried to give us as much insight as possible on what it all means, despite the lack of information out there.
Van Pelt also revealed that he doesn’t plan to host SportsCenter for too much longer. When asked whether he’d be host in three years, he said, “Nah.”
• Other topics covered with SVP include:
• Pat McAfee’s joining ESPN
• The night he lost his voice on live TV
• The beauty of his “Bad Beats” segment
You can listen to the podcast below or download it on Apple, Spotify and Google.
You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.
