ESPN Honors Phillies with Appearance on Sunday Night Baseball

Sunday Night is reserved for those last minute weekend plans you just couldn’t get around to, like spending time with your kids or not dreading the horrific siren of your alarm clock tearing your soft, beautiful dreamscape in half and jettisoning you back under the crushing defeat and endless ridicule of the workplace.

Damn kids.

But don’t fret, because as usual, ESPN is there for you.  And this time, they aren’t there to overdose you on Tim Tebow facts or celebrate the Miami Heat as American Heroes.  No, now they are up to something that is actually worth the attention of a human being; not of an old dog asleep in an empty living room with the TV on.  And that something will be on May 6, when the Phillies play in primetime Sunday Night Baseball in our country’s most recognizable sports facility, Nationals Park in Washington D.C.

Yes, it’s considered a true honor to be one of those few teams elite enough for an appearance on the esteemed, dignified network.  The Phils were selected along with other highly touted franchises, such as the Chicago White Sox and L.A. Dodgers, to get their big chance in the spotlight on one of those weeks the Yankees and Red Sox decided not to play each other.

Now, instead of the hawkish yodels of Tom McCarthy or rapidly smooth muttering of Scott Franzke, we will have the chance to hear what real experts of the game think; like Dan Shulman and Orel Hershiser and Terry Francona, who will have to find an anecdote to transition to outside of “that time Bobby Valentine wore a fake mustache.”   The 2012 season already looks to be littered with pitfalls.

Finally, sweet vindication will come the Phillies’ way.  What has this exhaustive, championship process been for if not to penetrate the inner circle and get their shot on ESPN and join the ranks of its completely dignified programming, analysts, and record?  I say the Phillies have finally made it, and we should thank ESPN for allowing our baseball to accompany their logo as we respectfully bow down and back out of the room.