NBC's Sunday Night Baseball schedule revealed

It's going to be a little bit weird this season to turn on NBC for Sunday Night Baseball. 

For years, Sunday Night Baseball has been on ESPN, but frankly, the quality of the coverage has waned on ESPN in recent seasons, so I think the move to NBC might be a welcome change. 

NBC will air a pair of games on Opening Day this year, plus a slate of games on Sundays. That schedule has been revealed, and here it is (all times Central):

• Opening Day, March 26: Pittsburgh at N.Y. Mets, noon; Arizona at L.A. Dodgers, 7 p.m. 
• April 12: Cleveland at Atlanta, 6 p.m.
• May 31: Cubs at St. Louis, 6 p.m.
• June 7: San Francisco at Cubs, 7 p.m.
• June 14: Texas at Boston 6 p.m.
• June 21: N.Y. Mets at Philadelphia, 6 p.m.
• June 28: N.Y. Yankees at Boston, 6 p.m.
• July 5: N.Y. Mets at Atlanta, 11:30 a.m.; San Diego at L.A. Dodgers, 6 p.m.
• July 19: L.A. Dodgers at N.Y. Yankees 6 p.m.
• July 26: N.Y. Yankees at Philadelphia, 6 p.m.
• Aug. 2: Boston at L.A. Dodgers, 6 p.m.
• Aug. 9: Houston at San Diego, 7 p.m.
• Aug. 16: Seattle at Houston 6 p.m. 
• Aug. 23: San Francisco at Boston, 2 p.m.
• Aug. 30: Cincinnati at Cubs, 2 p.m.; Houston at N.Y. Mets 6 p.m.
• Sept. 6: Atlanta at Philadelphia, 2 p.m.
• Sept. 7: St. Louis at San Francisco, 7 p.m. 

You'll probably notice this schedule feature a lot of teams from bigger markets, with two notable absences. Neither the White Sox nor the Los Angeles Angels get an appearance.

I've seen some grumpy posts on social media from Sox fans, angry that a network has once again snubbed a team that resides in America's third-largest market.

Well, fans, you can thank Jerry Reinsdorf. As a matter of fact, the Sox and the Angels have both sunk into irrelevancy while being plagued by bad ownership. These are teams that should be draws, but they simply are not. It's the price of years of poor management.

No, this year's World Series champion doesn't deserve an asterisk

Tim Anderson

I've heard and read several comments over the past three weeks about how this year's World Series champion should have an asterisk next to their name.

Here's my response: Bull feces.

Nobody should ever have to apologize for winning a championship, and when you think about it, what are the criteria that make a title "more legitimate" anyway?

I was thinking back to the one championship team we've seen on the South Side in my lifetime -- the 2005 White Sox.

For my money, that World Series title was as legit as any you were going to see. The Sox were wire-to-wire champions in the American League Central. They won 99 games. They had the best record in the AL. And they steamrolled the competition in the playoffs, romping through the postseason with an 11-1 record.

Still, you had people trying to take away the legitimacy of that championship by calling it "luck" or whatever. Hell, ESPN basically denies that the Sox ever won the World Series.

(Tim Anderson rightfully called out ESPN's ignorance of Sox baseball earlier this week.)

My point is, if your favorite club wins the championship, odds are the fans of rival teams or others who don't like your team are going to try to take that joy away from you. Try as they might, they cannot.

And this season is arguably a bigger challenge than most. Sure, the number of games has been reduced from 162 to 60, but teams are not only trying to beat the opposition, but they also are trying to avoid COVID-19.

The season is going to look different, for sure, but whoever wins the World Series is going to earn it. They shouldn't apologize for winning, and they'll have every right to tell naysayers to go to hell.