FanHouse Mlb Media Watch

Excited for the fifth game of the World Series on Monday night? Sorry to burst your bubble, but the cat is already out of the bag. The Phillies win. They win Game 6 on Wednesday night, too. And in an epic battle of baseball goodness that your grandchildren will tire of hearing you talk about, they win Game 7 and repeat as world champions.

I'm not making predictions here, people, this is all true. Why else would the Philadelphia Inquirer be running ads, via PhillyTalk.com, advertising a sale on T-shirts and other memorabilia celebrating the momentous occasion hours after Johnny Damon and Alex Rodriguez teamed up to beat Brad Lidge and give the Yankees a 3-1 lead in the World Series?

What can't David Wells do?

The man has thrown a perfect game while hungover, is an analyst for TBS and now he's even a columnist for the New York Post. A columnist that is not shy about sharing his feelings about the fans of Philadelphia, particularly that they're "ruthless and rude."

With the World Series set to take place in the City of Brotherly Love for the next three games, Wells took his fingers to the keyboard to share his thoughts on Philadelphia for all to see. His words were not kind:

Shortly after midnight on April 9, Los Angeles Angels pitcher Nick Adenhart was killed by a drunk driver just hours after a start against the Oakland Athletics. Now Adenhart's parents are speaking out about how they've dealt with their grief over the last six months.

"I have some days now that, you know, you try to move to that place where you're thankful for the time you had," Janet Adenhart says in an interview that will air Tuesday on HBO's Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. "But we're definitely not there yet."

Somebody get the dump button ready.

FOX has hired Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen to do studio work on their World Series pre- and post game shows. He'll be working in the studio alongside Chris Rose, Eric Karros and Mark Grace, and also contribute reports for FOX Sports Espanol.

So he'll be swearing in both languages.

NEW YORK -- With weather forecasts for Saturday's Game 2 of the ALCS in New York dicey (chance of rain 90 percent, rainfall near a half an inch), the leading contingency plan calls for a makeup game Sunday at 4:30 PM.

That would wipe out the travel day in the ALCS but allow the Yankees and Angels enough time to get to California for the scheduled 1:13 PM PT start Monday.

The only issue would be for FOX, which carries the ALCS and the NFL. If Game 2 is played Sunday afternoon, FOX would show its late NFL games (Arizona at Seattle and Philadelphia at Oakland) in those four local markets, with the ALCS on FX.

Under that schedule -- as long as Friday's Game 1 is played, which it seems like it will since there was no precipitation 30 minutes before game time -- the Yankees could still bring back Game 1 starter CC Sabathia in Game 4 on short rest. Games 3-5 would still be scheduled for Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. But Game 2 starter A.J. Burnett would have to go on short rest in Game 5, which was not the case in the original schedule.

Tuesday, FanHouse had the opportunity to discuss the MLB Playoffs with Baseball Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, who currently serves as a studio analyst for TBS. TBS will be broadcasting all four Division Series and also the NLCS again this season. Ernie Johnson is the studio host while Dennis Eckersley and David Wells join Ripken as studio analysts for these playoff games.

Of all the things Ripken discussed Tuesday, the most intriguing subject, not surprisingly, was one Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod is an oft-maligned regular season superstar, in that he's put up extremely gaudy regular season numbers throughout his career, yet has never played in a World Series and has pretty sub-par numbers in the playoffs overall -- especially of late.

Mike Blowers played 11 seasons in the majors, but he never had a day like this. Sunday, Blowers -- who now does color broadcasting for the Seattle Mariners -- made one of the most unbelievable predictions we'll ever see. The sheer accuracy of how he laid the situation out is simply mind-boggling. It involves the first career home run of rookie infielder Matt Tuiasosopo. Please check out the video, as it is well worth the watch.

While making my daily attempt to read everything on the Internet, I came upon a link that took me completely by surprise. It was to a story in the Providence Journal entitled, "Tim McCarver sings the American songbook." I did a double-take, the double-took my double take. The Providence Journal is a real newspaper and there's an Amazon.com link to the CD. This is really real.

This information has overloaded my poor little brain. Tim McCarver is one of my least favorite baseball announcers of all-time, and one of the reasons I can watch a game with the volume on and never actually hear one word the announcers say. But it's one thing to make fun of his baseball commentating. Everyone does that. Can I actually make fun of the man's singing voice?

SECAUCUS, N.J. -- Just before MLB Tonight goes off the air at midnight ET on Sept. 9, Al Leiter and Dave Valle demonstrate how not to bunt.

Earlier, the Giants had lost to the Padres in part because pinch hitter Kevin Frandsen failed to get down a sacrifice. So for a "Diamond Demo," Leiter and Valle move over to Studio 42 (named for Jackie Robinson) where a mock field is set up for analysts to demonstrate facets of the game.

About five hours before Leiter and Valle broke down Frandsen's mistakes, they took part in a production meeting. A producer asked Leiter, "Do you want to do a 'Diamond Demo?'"

Bob Prince. Jack Brickhouse. Harry Caray. Jack Buck.

Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau -- you know, "from beautiful and lovely Wrigley Field in Chicago ," as Lloyd used to gush before every home game.

No offense to the others, but in many ways, Ernie Harwell was the best of them all when chatting about baseball for hours over the airways as the years became decades. He was knowledgeable. He was poetic. Mostly, he was highly addictive. He spent 42 seasons using his southern drawl to make "Tighas" famous around Detroit and wherever the 50,000 watts of WJR 760 AM shipped his words.