A generation of baseball fans will get their wish Friday night when two broadcast icons join forces to call the Mets-Giants game on MLB Network.
Bob Costas, who often calls games on the network, will welcome NBC colleague Al Michaels to the broadcast booth.
They both called games during the 1995 World Series when ABC and NBC split the rights but never handled the same game together. In fact, that was the last time Michaels called a baseball game.
Michaels has called eight World Series, including the one between the Giants and Athletics in 1989, when Game 3 was famously interrupted by an earthquake.
According to MLB Network president and CEO Tony Petitti, the pairing was Costas’ idea.
“It only took us eight months to make it happen,” Petitti said during a conference call.
Even though Michaels is a guest, Costas wouldn’t delineate the legends’ roles. In fact, the two will take turns doing play-by-play.
“People get caught up a little bit on there has to be a play-by-play man and there has to be a color man,” Costas said. “That is really not important in baseball and never really has been, especially on the radio broadcasts.”
Since MLBN has nonexclusive rights, the broadcast will be blacked out in New York and San Francisco. As a result, Costas and Michaels — who once served as the voice of the Giants — will switch over to do innings on each of the local broadcasts. That means when Costas calls the fourth and Michaels the fifth in the SNY booth, Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez will do the same for MLBN.
Costas and Michaels then will repeat the maneuver on Comcast SportsNet Bay Area in the sixth and seventh, with the Giants duo of Duane Kuiper and Mike Krukow calling the game for the national audience. Costas and Michaels will return to MLBN for the final two innings.
This a fun idea, and hopefully Costas will be joined by other broadcasting greats in the future — maybe Vin Scully on a Dodgers game or Dick Enberg on a Padres broadcast, both of whom are worthy of some national attention, too. But this game with Costas and Michaels should be fun.
“I’ve spent more time with Gary Cohen, Ron Darling and Keith Hernandez than I have with my family,” Michaels said.
Examiner columnist Jim Williams is a seven-time Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer. Check out his blog, Watch this!, on washingtonexaminer.com.
