What happened to the claims of dramatically "expanding" spring coverae of the Red Sox?
The number of spring games televised is dropping from 9 to 7. Very dissapointing.

More coverage of practice but less of the actual ST games. Oh well....

NESN: Spring Training TV schedule

Edit: I suppose I'm most disappointed that the first games vs. BC & Northeastern will not be covered.
Edit # 2: On 2nd thought, I suppose I'm most disappointed that the exhibition games in Japan will not be picked up by NESN

And I thought last year's coverage was awful.

Oh well, guess that means I have to hear less of Remy trying to push his merch on people instead of calling the effin' game.

Indeed. In the past, I've enjoyed seeing some of the prospects play for the first time, but I admit I would often turn off a game once the non-roster invitees and AAA scrubs flooded the field after the first couple of innings. Still, there is something about seeing people play baseball in warm weather for the first time after a winter of once-a-week football and boring, no-name college games, even if it is meaningless. Thankfully, the Celtics are worth watching again, because it was getting harder and harder for me to sit through March Madness every damn year. At least January, the worst month for baseball, is nearly over.

It seems that the "expanded coverage" will be a 10 am show with Tom Caron. The show will be repeated a couple times during the day.

Well I hope they at least show a lot of the previous days game in that show.
Just a few years ago the Sox televised nearly all their spring games. Why have they cut back on that even as the enthusiasm of support for the team has grown?

Absolute crap.

So what shows do they have lined up that will pull in more ratings than the ST games? More repeats of Sox appeal?

Im going to write an email to NESN about this. I hope other join me.

So far it looks like only 12 of the 23 major league spring games will be televised. Still don't know about the 2 games against Baltimore. Only 2 of the 8 games in the second week will be televised.
Will they at least have an extended highlights program?

From what I understand, Tom Caron is going to host a "live" ST program at 10 am, every day, I think. Portions of that program will be repeated in the evening.

Shaughnessy's take on "Spring Training Live":

It's live - but not lively


Wow. LIVE FROM FORT MYERS! MUST-SEE TV! . . . Curt Schilling leading the charge out of the clubhouse for the ceremonial single lap around the warning track . . . Doug Mirabelli belching . . . Pitchers standing on the mound, in line, running to cover first base as a coach hits fungoes to the right side . . . Tim Wakefield stretching while Don Orsillo and Tom Caron stretch to find words to fill the empty action.

"Stretching on stretching? There will be a lot of that," admitted Caron. "But nothing says spring training quite like seeing Tim Wakefield field a bunt for the first time."

Poor Announcer Boy and T.C. By noon today, they're going to wish they were doing live commentary of the annual Memorial Day parade in Groton, Mass. There would be so much more to talk about. They should bring back Dave Maynard to help.

This is fairly amusing. They have NOTHING to show, but its kind of neat to see what the whole complex looks like for those of us who have never been there. I can't imagine what they are going to show every day, though.

Beckett was looking a little chubby in the tummy.

From yesterday's Globe: (I was in a meeting all day yesterday and am getting caught up...)


Nancy Marrapese-Burrell - NESN has spring in its step; Network focuses on Red Sox camp

The Red Sox are in Fort Myers, Fla., and NESN has some innovative programming, 250 percent more than in 2007, designed to give the Nation its fix. The 36 days of spring coverage began Wednesday and continues this morning with a two-hour broadcast of "Red Sox Spring Break LIVE," hosted by Tom Caron at 10, which will be replayed in full at 3:30 p.m. and in a condensed version at 6:30 and 10:30.

Joel Feld, NESN's vice president of programming and executive producer, thinks showing the workouts will go a long way toward giving fans a preview of what to expect as the Sox defend their world championship.

"It's a great opportunity for us to cover the team as extensively as we can while they're at spring training," said Feld. "The team is on the field in the morning, generally to work out and train, and we thought that would be the best opportunity to capture what is going on down there. I think being live is always preferable."

Is it lame? Yes. But it is still the best thing I've seen on tv since October.

This is crazy. They're showing hour after hour of the team working out over the next week; but when the actual games start they're only televising 7 of the 27 games!
If they want to satisfy the fans - televise the games!!

I suspect the number of games televised may have something to do with Jerry Remy's contract. I wonder if NESN would consider using other color commentators for weekday spring games?

Two games on March 11 & 12th are listed as being on MLB.TV but aren't being televised by either the Sox or the Mets/Twins. Who's doing those games and is there any chance of more being added?

6 of the spring games aren't even listed by either teams radio schedules.
Last year all the games that weren't televised were at least available on radio.

The opening game against Northeastern is now listed on WEEI's site .
That leaves the Pitt game on Tue(4th) and the Tampa game on Thu(13) with no TV or Audio.
The 2 games against Baltimore are still up in the air since Baltimore still hasn't listed its spring TV schedule(neither team is carrying a radio feed).

looks like all we'll get for the first game against Boston College on Thursday is the boxscore on the MLB site.

If that.... Last year they didn't publish boxscores for the games against college teams and I had to get them from the NCAA postings the next day!

Baltimore has added next Fridays game on MASN. So the final total for spring training is 13 of the 23 (major league)games will be televised, 7 will be on audio and 3 will only have a running boxscore(Pitt on 4th, Tampa on the 13th, and Baltimore on the 14th).
A lot of teams are at least having audiocasts of all there games, why haven't the Sox at least done that?

The MLB-College games on MLB today did list the boxscores for all the games as they went on. Once you get the audio on a game you could switch to the boxscore for more detailed info.
I remember last year they had a picture of the field showing all the plays along with the audio. Maybe they only did that on regular season games.

I've been trying for the last 2 hours to connect to the spring training thread and I keep getting blocked. Anybody else getting this?

It should be fixed now. That's why we have Spring Training for Moderators. My bad on the setup....