ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball” crew will be without Alex Rodriguez whenever the network features the New York Mets.
ESPN announced that Alex Rodriguez will not get the call for the New York Mets‘ lone “Sunday Night Baseball” game in 2020. The worldwide leader in sports put out a statement saying the decision was made due to A-Rod’s pursuit to purchase the Mets and the conflict of interest that would arise.
On an ESPN conference call, senior VP Mark Gross says the network has talked about not having Alex Rodriguez call any Mets games. Rodriguez will not call the Mets-Braves Sunday Night game on July 26. "We don't want to put the team, Alex or Matt in a difficult position."
— Tim Britton (@TimBritton) July 16, 2020
Those that have been following the team’s sale process know that Rodriguez and his wife, Jennifer Lopez, have been pushing to buy the team for months. They have earned financial backing from multiple billionaires and have the full support of Chase Bank. They even have a number of NFL and NBA stars as small partners.
The growing ownership group is one of just three known bids left in the race, along with Steve Cohen and the duo of Joshua Harris and David Blitzer. By moving on to the second round, Rodriguez has become deeply embroiled in the sales process and has intimate knowledge of the franchise that would make it difficult for him to call a Mets game.
Replacing Rodriguez with be former Atlanta Braves third baseman Chipper Jones. The ultimate Mets nemesis will call the Braves-Mets game that is currently scheduled to air on ESPN on July 26. Chipper joined ESPN in March of 2020 and was set to make his debut on Opening Day before COVID-19 shut baseball down.
Now he’ll make his debut calling a game that features the team he spent his entire career playing for, against the team he always killed. It’s like something out of a Hollywood movie.
