Pitchers and catchers are a mere handful of days from reporting and baseball season is almost upon us.  Here's your preliminary MLB on Fox schedule for the coming baseball season with regional action on Saturdays throughout the season.  Of note in the Fox schedule is ten straight weeks of primetime MLB on Fox windows from May all the way through the All Star Game in late July.  Also, Fox's MLB coverage will take two weeks off in early August for this little thing called the Summer Olympics.

Saturday April 7 4PM

St. Louis Cardinals @ Milwaukee Brewers

Boston Red Sox @ Detroit Tigers

Kansas City Royals @ Los Angeles Angels

San Francisco Giants @ Arizona Diamondbacks

Saturday April 14 1PM

Los Angeles Angels @ New York Yankees

Chicago Cubs @ St. Louis Cardinals

Texas Rangers @ Minnesota Twins 

Saturday April 21 4PM

New York Yankees @ Boston Red Sox

Chicago White Sox @ Seattle Mariners

Saturday April 28 1PM

Milwaukee Brewers @ St. Louis Cardinals

Los Angeles Angels @ Cleveland Indians

Kansas City Royals @ Minnesota Twins

Saturday May 5 4PM

Chicago White Sox @ Detroit Tigers

Arizona Diamondbacks @ New York Mets

Milwaukee Brewers @ San Francisco Giants

Saturday May 12 1PM

Los Angeles Angels @ Texas Rangers

Chicago Cubs @ Milwaukee Brewers

New York Mets @ Miami Marlins 

Saturday May 19 7PM

Boston Red Sox @ Philadelphia Phillies

Chicago White Sox @ Chicago Cubs

Texas Rangers @ Houston Astros

Baltimore Orioles @ Washington Nationals

Arizona Diamondbacks @ Kansas City Royals

Saturday May 26 7PM

Philadelphia Phillies @ St. Louis Cardinals

Tampa Bay Rays @ Boston Red Sox

Chicago Cubs @ Pittsburgh Pirates

Los Angeles Angels @ Seattle Mariners

Colorado Rockies @ Cincinnati Reds

Saturday June 2 7PM

New York Yankees @ Detroit Tigers

Chicago Cubs @ San Francisco Giants

Minnesota Twins @ Cleveland Indians

Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Diego Padres

Cincinnati Reds @ Houston Astros

In this extended discussion with Rece Davis and Hubert Brown on Monday night, Digger Phelps started talking about the Syracuse Orange and how they were going to dominate once center Fab Melo's academic issues were cleared up for good. One problem: Digger didn't call Melo by his name, instead calling him Thad Matta. Matta is of course the coach of Ohio State, who plays in the Big Ten, and not the Big East.

In Digger's defense, Fab Melo kind of sounds like Thad Matta. Well, I guess it does a little bit at least. But the two really don't have much in common, being more than 20 years apart and not even having the same job or playing in the same conference, let alone on the same team. Maybe the fact that both teams have white jerseys is what threw Digger off. Or, maybe Digger was just having an off night, which happens sometimes. At least his underlying point was good, and not a giant load of garbage.

[h/t: Lost Lettermen]

[follow]

In the fifteenth AA Podcast, we talk with Kevin Harlan fresh off his experience calling the Super Bowl on Dial Global/Westwood One radio to a nationwide audience. The Super Bowl was one of three games he worked in the middle of a typically busy stretch for one of the most well-known voices in sports. Kevin tells AA what Super Bowl Sunday is like from the broadcaster's perspective as well as touching on many other topics including...

-His most memorable play and call from Super Bowl XLVI 
-What one fact in his preparation helped him most in the Super Bowl broadcast 
-How a six hour roundtrip to South Bend was involved his Super Bowl weekend 
-The story of Eli Manning as the perfect narrative for the NFL season 
-Whether or not he agrees with Charles Barkley on the quality of NBA play this year being down 
-The job former partner Doug Collins is doing in Philly 
-What it's like to work with Bill Raftery on CBS college basketball 
-Which event is his favorite to broadcast

All that and even more on the newest edition of the Awful Announcing Podcast.

In case you've missed any of our podcasts featuring guests ranging from Ian Darke to Bruce Feldman to Tony Dungy, check out all of our podcasts on ITunes.

[follow]

Tuesday night, the New York Rangers trailed the New Jersey Devils 1-0 in the final seconds.  As the Rangers rushed Martin Brodeur's goal, Marian Gaborik crashed into the Devils goaltender while Rangers captain Ryan Callahan appeared to score the tying goal.  Even though it appeared Gaborik was helped into Brodeur by Devils defenseman Anton Volchenkov, the goal was disallowed.  Here's video of the play below...

Veteran broadcaster Al Trautwig was hosting the MSG postgame show after the Rangers telecast.  You might know Trautwig from his nationwide work with NBC's Olympics coverage and other sports.  In this case, the broadcast journalist within Al Trautwig was overcome with Rangers fan rage.  His postgame intro begins quite normally before exploding with fury over the "BRUTAL CALL!!!!!"  Then, Al goes back to the normal postgame intro before offering a befuddled groan and shake of the head.  The instantaneous metamorphosis of Al Trautwig is really quite interesting.  Don't get Al Trautwig angry.  You wouldn't like him when he's angry.

H/T LevityNYC

[follow]

The NFL has a neat little trick in which they announce big news close to the Super Bowl that at times can ruffle some feathers, but is often lost in the hoopla of the Super Bowl. Cris Carter snubbed by the Hall Of Fame? A football game in Mexico? More Thursday Night Football? In a regular week, this could be fodder on Around The Horn, PTI, Twitter, and the blogosphere. But in a Super Bowl week coupled with a 24/7 Peyton Manning PR battle in addition to the game hype, these news items seemed to just come and go without much analysis.

With that in mind, we've taken the liberty to build out a comprehensive winners and losers of the additional games that may or may not becoming to your television set this fall on NFL Network's Thursday Night Football.

Winners:

NFL Network

You don't have to be Richard Sandomir to realize the NFL Network is the biggest winner. Going from 8 games to 13 games extends the window of NFL Network's relevancy from just November-December to nearly the entire season with games now in September and October as well.

The added games are nothing to sneeze at. It means more advertising dollars, higher carriage fees, and more television markets being on the channel. The additional games and eyeballs gives the network not only more revenue, but also additional leverage to bend over negotiate with cable operators like Time Warner and Cablevision who are still engaged in trench warfare with the network.

Fans

Generally speaking, football has been nationally televised on Thursday Nights for a half season. Now it's on for almost a full season. For those without the NFL Sunday Ticket on DirectTV, you're now getting access to more football and obviously that's a good thing for fans...

ESPN has to get something out of the millions of dollars they're paying Rick Reilly, so they gave him a pulpit after the Super Bowl in Indianapolis. As usual, nonsense started spewing out of his mouth as soon as he opened it. You can check the video for yourself at the link, for some reason ESPN chose to not make it embeddable. Hmm... Sunday night's genius statement: the NFL should make Giants-Patriots the permanent Super Bowl game, in the vein of people talking yearly about a permanent Super Bowl site.  

How ridiculous is this? Reilly, as facetious as he may be, is talking about making the regular season and playoffs meaningless and letting the Giants and Patriots play in the Super Bowl every year. Ok, then. He follows that up by making this claim:

"The Patriots are sort of the Washington Generals to the Giants Globetrotters."

You know, the Patriots who have won three Super Bowls with Tom Brady at the helm... are the Washington Generals, the ones that have lost tens of thousands of games to their competition. That makes perfect sense, doesn't it?

Anyway, Reilly then says Patriots and Giants games always end the same: with the Giants walking away with the Lombardi Trophy. Just like they did when the two teams met in a regular season game in November, right? And when the Giants lost to the Patriots in Week 17 of the 2007 season? Sure, the games have all been good... but to make these broad, sweeping statements based on two Super Bowls the Giants won on last minute touchdowns is ridiculous. But then again, do you really expect much more from Rick Reilly?

[follow]

Yes, a star was born Monday across the pond when a kitty cat invaded the soccer pitch at Liverpool's Anfield during their EPL game with Tottenham.  Don't believe me that a cat can become a star overnight?  Just check out the Anfield Cat Twitter account, which now has almost 30,000 followers and growing!  That's more than Awful Announcing's Twitter page (insert cheap plug for @awfulannouncing here).  

But, as crazy events like this tend to do, the Anfield Cat got us to thinking about other moments when animals invaded our sporting events.  Here's 10 of our favorite moments in our most ridiculous, yet most adorable countdown yet.  Well... except for the animals who didn't quite survive their moment in the spotlight, they might not see this as an adorable list.

(10) A bear walks the course at the U.S. Senior Open
-One of the best qualities of golf is the enjoyment of nature while playing the game.  As an outdoor sport, it's not uncommon for golfers to come across all sorts of critters from squirrels and birds, to deer and aligators.  But, at the U.S. Senior Open, a black bear might have caused a bit of panic when it decided to play through.  How this clip lead to a Tim Kurkjian breakdown of man vs. bear is beyond me though.

(9) Bird meets its demise at tennis match
-I don't know how old this clip is, or who the tennis players are involved, but it was clearly a bad day to be a bird.  The only thing missing is the tennis player saying "Cerrano kill a living thing?!" as he kneels and prays over the bird.  Let's hope it got a decent burial!  Ah, who cares it's a rat with wings! (If you don't get these references please go watch Major League II... right now, I'll wait.)

(8) Rabbit races for Touchdown at Michigan
-Here's another old clip where it would be great to know more information.  A rabbit runs the length of the field at Michigan to score a TD while an unknown announcer calls the action like a modern-day Gus Johnson.  Who was that announcer?  What ever happened to that rabbit?  At least there's a modest tie-in here to announcing.

Plenty of games across NBC, NBCSN, and NHL Net for your enjoyment this week...

Tuesday February 7

Los Angeles Kings @ Tampa Bay Lightning (NBCSN 7:30PM) Mike Emrick, Brian Engblom

Wednesday February 8

Boston Bruins @ Buffalo Sabres (NBCSN 7:30PM) Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk, Pierre McGuire

Calgary Flames @ San Jose Sharks (NBCSN 10PM) TBD

Thursday February 9

Toronto Maple Leafs @Philadelphia Flyers (NHL Net 7PM) Local Broadcast

Friday February 10

Anaheim Ducks @ Detroit Red Wings (NHL Net 7:30PM) Local Broadcast

Saturday February 11

Winnipeg Jets @ Pittsburgh Penguins (NHL Net 2PM) Mark Lee, Kevin Weekes

Montreal Canadiens @ Toronto Maple Leafs (NHL Net 7PM) Bob Cole, Gary Galley, Glenn Healy 

Sunday February 12

Washington Capitals @ New York Rangers (NBC 12:30PM) Mike Emrick, Eddie Olczyk, Pierre McGuire

Philadelphia Flyers @ Detroit Red Wings (NBCSN 7:30PM) Dave Strader, Brian Engblom

H/T Sammy!

[follow]

We're still recovering from the Super Bowl and the end of the NFL season, but the world game is in full midseason swing.  Thankfully, that means another weekly dose of Gol TV's magisterial magician of the microphone, Ray Hudson.  On the weekend, Ray seemed a little more mellow than normal in calling the Barcelona v Real Sociedad tilt, but still went places no other broadcaster would be willing to go...

1-0 Tello (:47)

"Once again we see the genius of Messi.  The pure ego of genius, he doesn't have any.  There ain't anything egotistical about him.  He supplies this ball for Tello that is off the charts.  And what a magnificent mother's touch Tello gives it.  Look at this ball for Leo.  Just level and the sweetest of touches from Tello.  That is absolutely magnificent from the youngster.  The ball is perfect from Lionel Messi."

Messi chance

"Wonderful play again from the man I was telling you about.  Thiago Alcantara.  Tattoo it on your arms Barcelona fans, he'll do you proud over the years."

Alves chance created by Messi

"He'd follow you in a revolving door and he'd still come out first, Messi."

2-0 Messi (7:35)

"Well, it's like blasphemy criticizing Lionel Messi because it takes 1,000 Steinways to reproduce one note of his.  Again a magnificent finish, but a beautiful pass to set him up.  This time he doesn't hesitate.  This time he dispatches with prejudice.  And he saves his eternal thanks as always to his deceased grandma.  Wonderful ball played in, the rub of it.  But there's no controlling it this time.  Dani Alves sees it, leads it, spins it.  The ball rubs beautifully.  Leo sees his target, the onrushing Bravo and that back post, and he dispatches beautifully.  Finally."

2-1 Vela (8:45)

"He's in... wonderful from Vela, nicely supplied by the Frenchman who I was warning you about in the preview, this kid Antoine Griezmann.  And, Victor comes and closes the angle but Vela has got too much space and he's got Victor at his mercy.  Is it a bad giveaway that leads to it?  Well, it's a surprising one.  Right here, caught in possession is Thiago Alcantara I believe and then Griezmann quick as Jumpin Jack Flash sets away the Gooner Carlos Vela."

I have something embarrasing to admit. I am that guy that looks forward to televised Celebrity sporting events. There's just something so egomaniacal and over-the-top-shameless that I guess I can't make myself look away. I mean, I think I honestly would be upset with myself if I wasn't watching live when the third leading actor from Bones just intercepted Joe Montana.

I think it all started with those Rock 'N' Jock games that MTV used to air in the 90's. In my head back then the Dan Cortese vs. Bill Bellamy rivalry was probably equal to Knicks/Bulls in the 90's and this stretch of back-to-back 25 pointers (at the 10:20 mark) in the '94 RNJ by JR Rider and Gary Payton was probably greater than Joe Carter's World Series clinching homerun in my opinion.

Anyways, the third most important Bowl game of the weekend, the Celebrity Beach Bowl, was on Saturday. Snoop took MVP honors as he was just too much to handle for the likes of Artie Lange and Doogie Howser. Here's his first touchdown of the game with Dan Patrick and Kevin Frazier providing the call.

La Di Da Di Snoop likes to party. I gotta say I'm impressed these days when someone can do something that produces audible groans from seemingly everyone in attendance. Well done.