A-Rod to call Phillies-Cardinals wild-card series; NBA will look and sound a lot different on ESPN

Phillies fans will hear a familiar voice calling the upcoming wild-card series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Former Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez will be in the ESPN booth to call the best-of-three series, which begins Friday. Rodriguez will be joined by Michael Kay, the television voice of the Yankees on the Yes Network and a New York City sports talker on 98.7 ESPN New York. Alden Gonzalez will report from Busch Stadium in downtown St. Louis.

Rodriguez joined ESPN in 2018 as part of a three-person booth on Sunday Night Baseball that included Matt Vasgersian and Jessica Mendoza, who left after two seasons. Vasgersian and Rodriguez worked together through the 2021 season, and were replaced this year by the current Sunday Night Baseball crew of Karl Ravech, David Cone, and Eduardo Perez.

» READ MORE: Phillies playoffs: Schedule, tickets, and everything else you need to know

By his own admission, Rodriguez started off slowly in the booth, admitting to The Inquirer in 2018, “I’ll be the first one to say that I stink.” He wasn’t helped by ESPN’s decision to make the telecast centered around him, but he got better as he called more games.

Rodriguez also isn’t afraid to offer strong opinions, like when he ripped the “careless managing” of former Phillies manager Gabe Kapler while calling a 2019 game. At least this game will be played in St. Louis, so he won’t have to discuss his favorite Philly “cheese sandwich.”

This season, Rodriguez and Kay have co-hosted an alternate Sunday Night Baseball broadcast on ESPN2 called the KayRod Cast in the style of Peyton and Eli Manning’s alternate Monday Night Football broadcast. Just don’t call it a “Manningcast,” since KayRod isn’t produced by Omaha Productions.

While none of the Phillies playoff games will air on NBC Sports Philadelphia, WIP-FM (94.1) will continue to carry the games throughout the postseason. NBC Sports Philadelphia will continue to have Phillies pre- and postgame coverage, hosted by Michael Barkann, although the schedule could get tricky on Sunday if both the Phillies and Eagles are playing.

Here are the rest of ESPN’s announcing crews for the wild-card round of the MLB playoffs:

The NBA on ESPN will be sporting a new look and sound this season.

ESPN plans to unveil its new look on Thursday during a preseason doubleheader, which will feature a smaller “score bug,” updated graphics, and an all-new theme song.

ESPN’s old graphics package was first introduced in 2016. The old theme song — Fastbreak by Nonstop Music — debuted in 2004 on ABC, and made its way to ESPN a few years later.

So why change it now? ESPN said it was looking for a theme song “that would complement the energy of the young stars across the NBA.” So the network partnered with Made Music Studio in New York City to create “a hip hop-based concept” that it could use across all its basketball productions, including the WNBA and the G League.

The Sixers are scheduled to appear on ESPN 10 times this season, though all but one of those games (Dec. 16 against the Golden State Warriors) will also be telecast on NBC Sports Philadelphia. Sixers games will also air exclusively on ABC three times, including a Saturday-evening matchup against the Boston Celtics on Feb. 25.

ESPN has not yet announced its NBA crews, but you can expect Mike Breen, Jeff Van Gundy, and Mark Jackson to return as the network’s top broadcast team, with King of Prussia native Lisa Salters as the lead courtside reporter. Fans will also see and hear more from former Sixers shooter J.J. Redick, who will call at least 25 games in an expanded NBA role, according to network sources.