The NBA and NHL playoffs are better than ever. The Battle of Alberta is giving hockey a much needed rivalry defibrillation. The NBA will crown a new champion after dramatic second round exits of the teams that made last year’s Finals. But for some reason, I’m most excited about people talking about the slowest popular American team sport. 

Baseball announcing, though not garnering the attention as quite seismic NFL booth shifts (Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to ESPN for record setting money! Tom Brady to Fox once he retires from playing in 10-15 years!), is getting back to great. All of it is thanks to a return to a major network and a brand new streaming home for Friday night games. 

NBC Peacock is airing baseball games again after a 22 year absence. Their play-by-play/analyst/color combination is the ideal booth. There’s only one play-by-play broadcaster, the Chicago White Sox’s Jason Benetti, calling all 18 games. Joining him will be an analyst/color person from each team playing. Unlike an ESPN or playoff booth with announcers with no rooting interest, we’re getting one person from each team and a play-by-play announcer that’s also in the weeds with a regular team of their own. 

NBC Peacock absolutely nailed it. It helped that the first game, Chicago White Sox at Boston Red Sox, featured Steve Stone in the booth, who happens to be one of the best in baseball.

No one is better at rationally championing their own club while admitting when things aren’t going so well than Stone. 

But this isn’t about my Chicago bias. A booth like this is just a more realistic representation of how you watch a game with friends at the park. More often than not, a fan of the opposing team is in your area, whether that’s in the ballpark or at a bar. There is some playful animus but there tends to be respect and a willingness to call out the weak spots on your own team. The NBC Peacock broadcasts deliver this. Instead of the typical 162 game slog of the same two guys (one usually a former player, one usually an overqualified student of the game, both homers) praising the same guys and lamenting the same guys, it allowed both announcers to bring up points most casual fans don’t know. 

Applet TV+ Friday Night Baseball is also mixing up the format. Rather than one static booth calling every game, they’re offering two different crews, both featuring women. This is great and another step in the right direction, but since neither crew is using any of the team’s regular announcers, it’s just a better version of ESPN’s booth. This being said, I do prefer this to the ESPN calls since Katie Nolan is in the booth for their West Coast games and I’m a Katie Nolan fan. 

Baseball is a long season. Baseball is the longest season. If you want, you can feel quite familiar to the people in your team’s booth. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it’s bad, most of the time it’s eh. These two new ways to enjoy baseball are making baseball much more enjoyable. And even if you don’t catch any NBC Peacock or Apply TV+ games this year, that’s OK, at least you learned Steve Stone is a good Twitter follow. 

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