ESPN's first MLB broadcast under its new contract will feature Joe Buck, Orel Hershiser, and Ron Darling for the Dodgers-Mets game on April 15, Jackie Robinson Day. This lineup provides local insights from both teams.
ESPN’s first Major League Baseball broadcast under its new contract with the league will feature an All-Star booth.
Joe Buck will provide play-by-play alongside Orel Hershiser and analyst Ron Darling for the April 15 “Jackie Robinson Day” game between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets.
MORE: ESPN to feature Doug Glanville, Joe Buck on Jackie Robinson Day broadcast
Between Hershiser (the Dodgers’ primary color analyst on SportsNet LA) and Darling (a Mets broadcast staple since 2006), both teams will have local perspectives in the booth.
Buck, of course, is ESPN’s lead analyst on Monday Night Football. His baseball background is practically unparalleled among active broadcasters. Before joining ESPN in 2022, Buck called 24 World Series and 22 MLB All-Star games on Fox.
Buck has never worked a game with Hershiser and Darling, neither of whom is a regular on-camera presence for ESPN. So how did the star-studded booth come together?
“Mark Gross, who also oversees Monday Night Football … he said, who would you want to do it with?” Buck told Richard Deitsch on the Sports Media Podcast. “So I said Dodgers, and I think Orel; Mets, I think Ron. And those were the two names that I gave him. And he went to work trying to secure them. I forgot that Orel had been with ESPN and had done Sunday Night Baseball. Ron is a top analyst at another network (TBS) in the postseason and is part of, I think, the best local TV broadcast team in baseball with the Mets.
“That was easy — who do you want to work with? — and it just so happened that it was able to come about.”
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Longtime ESPN analyst and former MLB outfielder Doug Glanville will be heavily involved in the production, penning an essay for the pregame roll-in to commemorate Jackie Robinson breaking professional baseball’s “color barrier” with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947.
Glanville will also feature into ESPN’s “Baseball Tonight” studio coverage of the game along with Negro Leagues Hall of Fame president Bob Kendrick.
The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets will be playing in ESPN's first MLB broadcast featuring Joe Buck.
The commentators for the game will be Joe Buck, Orel Hershiser, and Ron Darling.
April 15 is Jackie Robinson Day, a day to honor the legacy of Jackie Robinson in Major League Baseball.
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