Biggest stories of the MLB season? Alex Rodriguez in Hall of Fame? An Opening Day writer roundtable (2024)

With the start of the 2021 MLB regular season coming on Thursday, I paneled seven MLB writers from The Athletic, covering teams around the country, for a roundtable discussion on a number of MLB-related topics.

The panel:

Lindsey Adler, Yankees writer
Fabian Ardaya, Angels writer
Alex Coffey, A’s writer
James Fegan, White Sox writer
Dennis Lin, Padres writer
David O’Brien, Braves writer
Jayson Stark, national writer

(Editor’s note: Some of the answers have been edited for length and clarity.)

If you had to predict: What will be the biggest story you will cover this season?

Adler: Baseball — and the Yankees’ pursuit of a World Series victory. That is what my job is typically, but it feels novel this year given last year’s pandemic-shortened season. Last year I felt that it was my responsibility to represent the way the coronavirus was impacting the season and how questionable it was that they were playing through the pandemic at all. I have hope now that COVID is on the ropes, we will slide toward normalcy this season. At some point, the biggest concern around the Yankees will be whether or not Aaron Judge stays healthy, and if they have the pitching depth to finally re-enter a World Series.

Ardaya: Outside of the Angels finally making it back to the postseason under Mike Trout, it probably will be what I’ve already been reporting on throughout the entire spring — whether Shohei Ohtani can successfully pitch and hit full-time over a full season while staying healthy. He’s probably the most important non-Trout player to the Angels’ chances of contention in 2021, but beyond just that, this is a generational talent still attempting to do something that was unthinkable before he hit the scene in Japan. He’s a real-life Steve Nebraska, and also just a fascinating person to cover.

Coffey: The A’s are under-covered in general, for a number of reasons — reasons that have more to do with their low payroll and penchant for trading homegrown stars than they do with being in a “small market.” That could change, though, if their proposed ballpark project at Howard Terminal goes through. Owner John Fisher has said (through Billy Beane) that he’s not spending on his team until there are shovels in the ground. A few challenges have been thrown the A’s way, which team president Dave Kaval has said could derail the entire project.

Why is this important? The A’s have said they don’t want to return to the Coliseum (their lease their expires in 2024, so the clock is ticking), and there is no third option we’ve heard of. Another failed ballpark proposal would mean that the A’s have tried six sites since 2006, to no avail. If this ballpark doesn’t come to fruition, there’s a very real chance they could relocate.

Fegan: My colleague Andy McCullough told me to approach this season by remembering that the most famous person on the team I cover is now the manager. The White Sox hired a 76-year-old Hall of Famer to manage their up-and-coming club full of talented and engaging players. If it succeeds, the White Sox get to jam their collective finger in the eye of the doubting baseball world, If it flops for a large number of possible reasons, that figures to be what I spend the final three months of 2021 talking and writing about endlessly.

Lin: The continued emergence of Fernando Tatis Jr. as the rare baseball player with national crossover appeal. Besides his magnetic play on the field, he’s already outdoing most NFL quarterbacks in terms of endorsem*nts (Gatorade, adidas, BMW, etc.). At 22, Tatis is a potential antidote for a sport poisoned by labor strife and a host of other issues. He also could become living proof that you no longer need to play in a big market to acquire face-of-the-game status.

O’Brien: Ronald Acuña Jr. becomes the fifth member of the 40-40 club and only the second this century after Alfonso Soriano had 46 homers and 41 stolen bases with the Nationals in 2006. Acuña almost joined the exclusive club in his first full season in 2019 at age 21, when he finished with 41 homers and 37 steals after being slowed by a strained hamstring at the end of the season. He’s slimmed down this year after increasing his offseason workout routine back home in Venezuela, and this seems like the season for him to do it (as he’ll be leading off again in a lineup that features MVP Freddie Freeman and 2020 NL home run and RBI leader Marcell Ozuna.) He’s still very young (23) and energized, he’s faster than ever after dropping some weight, and he’ll get plenty of fastballs to hit. If Acuña stays healthy he could not only get 40-40, he might just make a serious run at being the first to go 45-45.

Stark: I should probably say the looming labor crisis or all the different pandemic storylines to come. But I’m going to try my best this year to savor the good stuff on the field. So I’m going to predict the Dodgers and Padres stage the greatest division race of the wild-card era. It wouldn’t shock me if the Dodgers win 108 games and the Padres win 105, they play 19 epic rivalry games along the way, and we’re debating the Mookie Betts/Fernando Tatis Jr. MVP race right down to the final weekend. I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to that rivalry. Can you tell?

Who would be the toughest person to get hold of on your beat and why?

Adler: Aaron Judge is very reserved. He has always been very kind to me and generous with his time when we have set things up in the clubhouse, but he is a very private person and the scope of what he is willing to talk about with reporters is limited. I find him to be a fascinating, smart, and complex person who I would like to profile approximately three times a year, but he has his boundaries and is firm about them. One burden that he lives with is the fact that we are both 49ers fans and when clubhouse access was a thing, he was obligated to listen to my furious complaints about the team. I need to get a hold of him one-on-one soon if only to get his thoughts on the Jimmy Garoppolo situation.

Ardaya: I would say Mike Trout by virtue of him being the best player on the planet, but he’s actually fairly accessible even if he isn’t a Joey Votto-level quote. I’d say it’s either Anthony Rendon or Albert Pujols. Rendon has made it very well known how uncomfortable he is with interviews — he once told me the thought of them makes him want to retreat into his own little cocoon, and he’s understandably protective over certain topics. Pujols has had to answer questions about his big contract with the Angels for a decade now, and the decade before that was spent front and center for one of the biggest teams in baseball. He also is meticulous about the timing of his routines, so back in clubhouses that meant setting up a time to talk at least a day or two in advance.

Coffey: John Fisher. He’s notoriously private. If my memory serves me correctly, he’s only given one interview since becoming majority owner in 2005, and that was only after he decided to reverse his decision to not pay minor leaguers a $400/week stipend during the shutdown. If an A’s fan walked past him on the street, I don’t think they would recognize him. As much as Billy Beane is the face of the team, Fisher is the opposite.

Fegan: When I began on the beat in 2017, it was a widespread understanding that team chairman Jerry Reinsdorf does not comment to the media about the state of the ballclub. I honestly can’t claim I’ve even tried with any regularity. The White Sox have really centered general manager Rick Hahn as the front-facing employee for their larger organizational decisions.

Lin: In general, the Padres seem more accessible than most organizations, so I’ve been fortunate in that regard. The stories about A.J. Preller’s sleep patterns are mostly true, but he’s not an unreachable general manager.

O’Brien: Executives with Liberty Media, the Braves’ corporate owner based in Denver. They very rarely do interviews, particularly print or digital publication interviews. And any interviews they do are almost always about the conglomerate and its holdings in general, not Braves-specific.

Stark: I actually don’t think there is anyone in my sport I would consider to be unreachable. I find people at all levels of the sport to be more accessible these days than the outside world might think, even in a pandemic. So let me give a slightly different example, of someone who is less visible than I think most people would have expected: Derek Jeter. As a player, he was one of the most available stars in the whole sport. He might not have bared his soul, but if you needed to talk to him for almost any story, you could find him at his locker at some point before every game and after every game. If you had the right angle or the right question, he could be great. So I just find it interesting how little we hear from him now that he’s the president of the Marlins. Some team presidents think of themselves as the voices of their franchise, so we hear their voices a lot. Not all are like that, but I would have guessed when Jeter took that job that he’d be similar to how he was as a player. Instead, he has mostly stayed behind the scenes and picked his spots extremely carefully.

What do you consider the most under-covered story in MLB heading into the 2021 season, and why?

Adler: Vaccine distribution. It’s unclear how this will affect baseball and the current COVID protocols. It’s a relief that sports leagues didn’t try to jump the line, but how do they promote the idea of establishing herd immunity in a clubhouse? Also, if MLB were to have a vaccine program or something like that, they’d have to stagger distribution. They can’t vaccinate everyone on the same day and wind up losing 1/3 of the team the next day to fatigue or a sore arm.

Ardaya: It’s simultaneously covered extremely well but not covered enough to make it a regular talking point of conversation — the contraction of the minor leagues, combined with only a select group of prospects playing at alternate sites last summer. What will that do to player development and the long-term health and growth of the sport? Sure, the contraction increased minor-league wages some, but the expenses to do so were minimal even before revamping and reshaping leagues. Throw in a five-round draft last summer (instead of the typical 40 rounds) and the fact that a majority of players didn’t get a minor-league season last year due to the pandemic, and one can’t help but wonder what adverse effect it might have on growing the current talent boom in the sport.

Coffey: See my answer for the biggest story I’ll cover this season.

Fegan: I could get on my soapbox and say that it’s the fallout from cutting back on the minor leagues, and what effect it will have on baseball fandom in those affected regions. Or I could complain about the continued depreciation of pro and amateur scouting and what sort of athletes the game will miss out on as a result. But as far as stuff people would actually read in normal circ*mstances, the ability to report in any credible way on clubhouse and interpersonal dynamics within an organization is fundamentally compromised by not being there and not having in-person conversations. All of our work is comparatively dry and removed, and absent nuance and imagery. There really isn’t a countermeasure for it, either.

Lin: The measures players take in order to get, and stay, on the field. These include cortisone shots, medication, supplements and other things that don’t see the light of day. Injuries could reach an all-time high this year, and due to reduced access and health-privacy laws, we will never hear about the majority of them. That’s how it’s always been but, with advances in science, perhaps an increasing percentage of the league is finding ways to play through pain.

O’Brien: The difficulties and frustrations that that so many fans have in not being able to watch their team play every day on TV. The majority of fans don’t make it to many, if any, games at an MLB ballpark during the season because of location (they can’t easily get to a game from where they live), and/or the costs of tickets, parking and concession. Or perhaps because they have little kids and night games end too late. Add COVID-19 concerns and attendance restrictions and it’s an even smaller group that will make it to games. But plenty of those who watch on TV are every bit as serious in their fandom as those who do attend. Now, because of squabbles between cable providers, regional networks, YouTube, Hulu and on and on, a lot of people don’t know if they’ll be able to watch their team on a regular basis.

Stark: Hey, it’s The Athletic. We don’t under-cover anything, do we? But here’s something I’ve thought about — how difficult it’s going to be to make up games postponed because of COVID outbreaks this year. It was challenging last year, when everyone was playing the same teams over and over again because of that regional schedule. But now that teams are back to playing games in all four time zones, I don’t know how it’s possible to reschedule games two or three time zones away. So imagine getting down to the final week of the season, and the Nationals are going to play 162 games but the Mets are only going to play 155. Think that’ll come up?

What is your favorite baseball advanced metric and why?

Adler: I love using metrics like Weighted Runs Created Plus or Earned Run Average Plus because it takes a player’s overall production and contextualizes their overall performance in relation to the rest of the sport, putting it on a scale where a wRC+ of 100 or more is above league-average and anything below 100 is less than league-average.

But! This is a shortcut and is a writing tool more than anything else. Advanced metrics are imperfect and constantly evolving. There’s a lot of motivated perception at work in the way baseball is measured and quantified. Advanced metrics basically come down to what we can measure with existing technology and brainpower, and it creates an industry bias where the things we can quantify become the most attractive skills for a player. We can measure spin rate and velocity, but there’s no way to quantify the quality of a player’s mechanics, and how they may hold up over time. So spin rates are easy to make attractive, and easy to seek out in roster building. Mechanics are best observed through scouting, which is seen as subjective and many teams have dumped scouts because they feel they can evaluate players using technology instead.

The history of baseball statistics is that some of our best efforts at quantifying value — Runs Batted In, anyone? — wind up looking incomplete, poorly considered, and essentially useless in retrospect. Metrics are fickle. They are very useful, but fans should be wary of being overly attached to one metric over another.

Ardaya: It’s too easy to say one of the Wins Above Replacement formulas (for infielders, I like Baseball-Reference, for outfielders and pitchers I like FanGraphs, and for catchers I like FanGraphs or Baseball Prospectus). But I’m a sucker for all adjusted metrics. Want to know how good of a player someone is? Adjust their numbers for ballpark, opponent, etc. and see how they compare to the rest of the league. Having it go off such an easy scale, where 100 is league average, makes it easily digestible for folks too. For offensive prowess, that means adjusted on-base-plus-slugging (OPS+) or weighted runs created plus (wRC+). For pitchers, it’s adjusted earned run average (ERA+).

Coffey: Weighted runs created plus (wRC+). I like that it’s scaled around a league average (100), making it easy to figure out who is performing above league average, and below. I also like that it factors in park factors, making it a useful to compare hitters playing in different ballparks.

Fegan: I probably used wRC+ (weighted runs created plus) the most out of any metric that is actually trying to encompass multiple elements to spit out a broad summary, in this case, a summary of the quality of a hitter. I think we have a stable grasp on the values of offensive outcomes, and even if park factors are imperfect and someone can ride batted ball luck to a great season, wRC+ is a useful rough picture. But my favorite stuff to look at (fastball vertical and horizontal movement, fastball whiff rate) is mostly details about pitch movement and behavior and how that informs the way pitchers use their arsenals. Those are measurements more than they are metrics.

Lin: I’m not sure how advanced you would consider exit velocity, but there’s something viscerally satisfying about watching Aaron Judge hit a 460-foot laser and seeing “118 mph” flash across your screen. Of course, you need to make contact for any of this to matter, but the average exit velocity leaderboards tend to showcase the game’s best offensive performers. I find this correlation useful and entertaining.

O’Brien: OPS. I know, I know — hardcore sabermetrics folks consider it rudimentary by now. But for me, OPS is easily understood by most fans, yet sophisticated enough to be a far better indicator of a hitter’s performance than batting average. OPS combines on-base percentage and slugging percentage, so you’re getting some indication of how often a player gets on via hit or walk, and how much power he produces. Sure, it can be skewed by extreme cases of players who have a relatively low OBP but an enormous slugging percentage, and slugging percentage can be greatly affected by a player’s home ballpark (e.g., Coors Field, or Yankee Stadium’s right-field porch). Which is why OPS+ is even better, as it takes into account external factors such as ballparks. However, OPS+ isn’t nearly as easy to explain or understand, and when writing for an audience that includes vast numbers of fans who are serious about baseball but don’t want to take deep dives in the analytics pool, using OPS in an article, for me, just tends to work better. For the most part, plain old OPS has become in today’s game something akin to what batting average was for decades and decades, in terms of being widely used and easy to understand.

Stark: I only get to name one? You’ve heard I love numbers, right? So this is impossible. But here’s one I’ve gotten fascinated by, because data-savvy coaches often talk about it. It’s “Expected Average” and “Expected Slugging” at baseballsavant.com. They’re Statcast metrics that measure quality of contact and basically tell you what should have happened, based on how certain hitters actually hit the ball. So the stats will tell you, for example, that Bryce Harper hit .268 and slugged .542 last season. But his Expected Average was 40 points higher (.308) and his Expected Slugging Pct. was 114 points higher (.656). So he should have had a monster year, based on those numbers, right? Or Alex Verdugo hit .308 but should have batted .238, according to Expected Average. Not that what-ifs matter in sports. But these are revealing because they help us project what’s likely to happen moving forward — theoretically, anyway.

How comfortable do you feel covering games in person?

Adler: Very. Yankee Stadium is very large and airy and the press box is open air. During spring training, I have been working from an auxiliary box in the stands. Honestly, I’d love to work from the stands for the rest of my career! Also, I will be fully vaccinated by Opening Day, which is the most important part to me. I felt safe covering games at Yankee Stadium last year, but I will be relieved to know that I will not be putting others at risk when I go to cover games.

Ardaya: I’ve already done so in spring training. I will probably feel more comfortable when I’m vaccinated, but I feel there is still something to gain from being in the ballpark itself. TV broadcasts, as great as they are, don’t capture everything.

Coffey: To be honest, I still don’t feel very comfortable. Media members don’t need to be vaccinated to cover games, and players don’t need to be vaccinated to play games — and I understand why that is the case — but it seems like there is still a level of risk involved, that, given the access we have right now, might not be worth it.

Fegan: The mask compliance in stadiums is pretty garbage considering all the signs telling you what to do. The White Sox were great about opening the windows of their press box last season, but a lot of spring training locations treated it as some idealized errand, like cleaning your gutters, that you may or may not remember or care to do. That said, if I was able to fly on a 175-person flight packed to the gills and test negative afterward, maybe double-masking works, and I try to just take comfort in doing all that I can.

Lin: More comfortable than I did last season, when I attended roughly half of the Padres’ home games. Pre-vaccination, however, I would continue to have some reservations about traveling.

O’Brien: Comfortable, since teams follow strict mask requirements, temperature checks and social distancing between reporters’ work areas at places I’ve been, including spring training this year. Also, most supply hand sanitizer and wipes, and food is individually wrapped if any is available. As vaccination numbers grow, hopefully the risk factor will drop steadily. But as long as I’m wearing a mask and no one’s getting in my face to talk, I’m good.

Stark: I’ll be honest. I’m still going to be wary at first. It all depends on working conditions, how crowded the press box is going to be, how many people are going to be allowed in the stadium, etc. But the other aspect is whether we’ll even be able to talk to the people we cover if we’re there. By that I mean players, coaches, front office, scouts — the people we need to connect with to do our jobs. That was impossible last year. If it’s not going to be any more possible this year, the only reason to cover games in person is that I love and miss baseball. That’s not a small factor! I expect I’ll be like a lot of people. I’ll be evaluating all of this as we go along. But I really hope we can get back to some semblance of normal — at ballparks and everywhere else.

Would Alex Rodriguez get your Hall of Fame vote?

Adler: I don’t intend to vote when I am eligible. But I wish Alex a lot of peace when this debate begins in earnest.

Ardaya: Yes, though I luckily won’t have a Hall of Fame vote for a little while longer. I understand completely the concern about performance-enhancing drugs, particularly for those like Rodriguez who were suspended multiple times for it. Sure, his accomplishments aren’t wiped from baseball history. But if the main point of the character clause is revolved around giving a bigger voice and platform given their status in the game, that ship has already sailed with A-Rod. He just tried buying a team. He’s featured on multiple national broadcasts of the sport and seemingly finds his way to pop into every major event. He had a Hall of Fame-level career, and it’s not as if keeping him out will make him any less impactful than he already is.

Coffey: I’m going to preface this by saying that even if I qualify for a Hall of Fame vote someday, I will probably give up that right, because I don’t have any burning opinions about who should/should not get in. That being said, I would probably lean towards being a “small Hall” type of voter, and as long as the ambiguous character clause is included in the voting rules, I wouldn’t vote for anyone connected to PED use while PEDs were banned from the game. So, no, Rodriguez would not be on there (despite his spectacular career numbers).

Fegan: One benefit of not having a Hall of Fame vote now nor anytime soon is not having to tie myself up in rhetorical knots about what the roles and responsibilities of a voter are. I can’t say I’ve sat down and sketched out a broad policy on how I will vote in regards to PED suspensions or suspected PED usage, or how I will regard the character clause, or whether or not I feel comfortable taking up the mantle of upholding the standards of this institution, given how murky said institution is about defining those standards. I think that the “Hall of Fame is a museum and we shouldn’t try to erase history,” arguments are overrating the singular ability of the Hall of Fame to dictate who and what is or is not remembered, and who we take time and resources toward elevating with a ceremony in their honor should be a carefully considered thing. That said, Rodriguez was a generational player in terms of both talent and production, and there’s more in the ledger for me to say that he’s HOF-worthy than not.

Lin: Rodriguez certainly appears to have a more egregious history of PED use than Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, two players I would vote for if I had a ballot. Still, I don’t think I would feel entirely confident drawing a strict demarcation line here. I would vote for all three.

O’Brien: No. I don’t vote for known steroid users, or ones that I’m firmly convinced used steroids.

Stark: As of this second, no. I’ve spent over a decade now trying to figure out what to do about the greatest players of the PED era. I’ve reached a place where I divide those players into two categories – the Guessing Game era (before testing) and the Testing/Consequences era. The Guessing Game era is impossible to assess. But with a guy like A-Rod, I don’t have to guess about what he did or didn’t do. I know way more about it than I ever wanted to know. He got suspended for a full season. He’s admitted many times that he cheated, he lied and he knew at the time he was “stupid” for doing it. So how do you vote for him? Could I ever change my mind? Who knows? Maybe someday, the Hall will give us guidance as voters just to elect the best players and they’ll explain it all on the plaques. That would change the way we vote on Bonds, Clemens and others from that era. But I also can’t imagine that ever happening.

Will a female broadcaster be assigned the network play-by-play of the World Series on either TV or radio or streaming in your lifetime?

Adler: Yeah, absolutely. There are some great broadcasters throughout the sport (including the minor leagues) who are women, and it will be cool to see one of them on the call in a World Series.

Ardaya: Yes, and I sure hope it happens quicker than we think. Broadcast booths don’t change often and having a variety of different perspectives to talk about the sport is extremely important — I felt so strongly about this I wrote about it for The Athletic last summer. But if the subtext of the question is, “Is there a pipeline to make this happen?” then absolutely there is. There are women calling games for local broadcasts already, and the expansion of how sports is consumed could only expand the possibilities. I think to how there are multiple broadcasts of the College Football Playoff, or the idea that there were multiple audio feeds for different Amazon NFL broadcasts this year. Why not do that?

Coffey: I think so. I think that we’ve been trending towards that point for a while now, with ESPN’S hiring of Jess Mendoza, and Jenny Cavnar making history by becoming the first woman to do play-by-play in an MLB game in 25 years, in 2018, and so on. I don’t know when it will happen, but I think it’s just a matter of time until it does.

Fegan: The progress toward it is embarrassingly incremental, and there’s a vast and unacceptable web of abuse that every non-male person in baseball is made to endure. But I’m only 33. So, yes.

Lin: Yes. Jenny Cavnar’s play-by-play debut is recent proof of what could, and should, be attainable for female broadcasters. A World Series broadcast is a coveted assignment, but I’d like to believe there will be enough progress for a breakthrough in the coming years.

O’Brien: Yes. Probably within the next 10 years. Just look at Doris Burke, who’s one of the best NBA analysts.

Stark: Wow. I’d love to see that happen. As a dad who has two incredible daughters who work in sports — and are amazing at it — I’d doubly love to see it happen. The only reason I hesitate to say yes is that our industry hasn’t provided enough opportunities for women to do that job, even on the club level. The only way to get one of those jobs is to demonstrate how talented you are at doing it. And we’re just not giving enough women the opportunity to showcase those talents. I hope that changes.

How will legalized sports gambling impact baseball?

Ardaya: I’m sure there will be some adverse effects we haven’t thought of, but I don’t know how much of an effect they will have on the actual game on the field. I do wonder how much it will affect broadcasts and how the game is presented. The concept of futures bets isn’t anything new to baseball lexicon — former Angels GM Billy Eppler said he’d actually look at over/unders for the season as a means of seeing how others viewed his team entering a season.

Coffey: There are the obvious, day-to-day ways it’ll impact baseball and then there are more overarching ways it’ll impact baseball. Now that more money is at stake, player and umpire safety could be a concern. How much of a cut the players get from revenue generated by betting could impact labor relations in the sport. This is still pretty new, so we’ll have to wait and see, but it’s hard to imagine the impact not being significant.

Fegan: At the risk of being extremely cynical about human society, it will inject a big new surge of revenue that will paper over existing flaws about the game and its struggle to reach new audiences. And it will accelerate the commodification of athletes and how they are discussed and treated as automatons whose sole purpose is to produce their expected numbers.

Lin: I see it raising the popularity of a sport that has struggled with relevance. Including the postseason, baseball offers a seven-month schedule, daily games and, because of its natural pace, a seemingly endless number of betting opportunities. You would hope, though, that the industry does not rely on the legalization of sports gambling to capture a broader fanbase.

O’Brien: I’m not sure, but you can bet — pardon the pun — that it will result in more revenues to line the pockets of teams, or else they wouldn’t even consider it.

Stark: I worry about this. But I think it has a chance to increase the interest level across the sport. It can be hard, as a fan, to keep your focus on the average three-hour game. But if you’re betting on that game, it can turn a regular-season baseball game into an NFL Sunday. If you’re betting on the next batter to get a hit, or on Josh Hader to strike out three hitters in his next half-inning, your level of engagement in that at-bat or that inning takes on a whole new dimension. The concern, of course, is that it’s engagement for all the wrong reasons. But that door is opened now. It’s impossible to shut.

The Ink Report

1. Leah Hextall’s first opportunity to call a hockey game in 2021 is one she won’t soon forget. On Saturday night in Fargo, North Dakota, Hextall and analyst Dave Starman were on the mic for ESPNU when Minnesota Duluth survived a 3-2 victory over North Dakota in five overtimes to reach the Frozen Four. The game lasted 142 minutes, 13 seconds of ice time and six hours, 12 minutes of real time — breaking the NCAA Tournament record for longest game set by the Wisconsin and Harvard women in 2007. On Sunday I caught up with Hextall, who was profiled last year by our Hailey Salvian, about one of the most memorable games in college hockey history.

How challenging was it to return to play-by-play after not calling a game in more than a year?

Hextall: I hadn’t called a game coming into this tournament since my NHL game on March 8, 2020, between Vegas and Calgary. It’s very difficult to come back to something, especially something that is not a skill set that is ingrained in me, because I’m relatively new in the play-by-play role. Entering this tournament, I had 12 games under my belt (on play-by-play) and Michigan-UMD (in the regional semifinal) was a no contest so we didn’t have that game to call. Then we called North Dakota-AIC on Friday night, and I felt very rusty in that game. The names weren’t coming to me. The flow wasn’t coming to me. It’s like anything you do, whether it’s playing a sport or practicing a musical instrument, if you don’t get repetition, you’re not going to get better.

The regional final is a game that has such merit to it, a regional final to send a team to the Frozen Four. The challenge was just simply coming in and trying to find your voice again, trying to find your flow again, working with people you’ve never worked with before. But thankfully I had a tremendous analyst in Dave Starman and my producer Michael Principato was incredible, as was our entire crew. But it’s a super challenge, and what’s most frustrating for me is I can’t find those consistent reps. The pandemic did nothing to help because I would usually go to some small towns in Manitoba and call junior games but they were not playing this year due to COVID-19. So more than anything, it’s frustrating because when you feel like you have potential in it and you try to step into the booth, it’s all new again. You feel like you’re almost starting at square one, even though you’re not. Let’s just say I got a few reps in last night, which I’m very thankful for.

How were you feeling mentally and physically in the fifth overtime?

Hextall: Well, the good news about the fifth overtime was that it wasn’t very long. But I recall in between the fourth and the fifth periods, my body was actually starting to shake because I was cold. I was drinking a lot of water. I was sitting down in the chair. I had to take my shoes off because my feet were killing me as I had been standing in my heels for so long. So unfortunately for Dave, there was probably some bad odor wafting his way. But mentally the names and numbers were still coming to me. The play on the ice was still coming to me after the fourth overtime. It was the setups such as trying to recall who scored in the third period, resetting the game for any audience that may have been joining us late. My brain felt like mush there.

I remember in between the fourth and fifth overtime I sat down on a chair and closed my eyes and kind of zen-ed out. I probably could have almost fallen asleep right there. Fatigue was settling in. It’s probably similar to what the players were going through. You just are not as sharp. The only thing I continue to think about today is that after the goal was scored, I said in the eighth overtime, meaning the eighth period of the game. I’m still kicking myself on that. But that’s an example of the fatigue that was setting in. Calling the game was still there. The brain was still working. But when it came to all the little things like throwing to break or trying to listen to my producer who was talking to me in my ear to give me facts, I kept having to have him repeat things because I just wasn’t taking in information anymore.

It was an interesting scenario. But more than anything, I learned a lot. I learned when you get to that place, it’s time to really drill down and do limited amounts of speaking, do what you need to, and give yourself that space to breathe when you can’t. I have to say today I feel like I’m hungover, and last night I felt a little punch drunk. My brainpower was definitely slow by the end of it.

What did you do after the game?

Hextall: After the game, I thanked the production truck for all the work that they did because they were fabulous. I gave Dave Starman, my color analyst, a big hug. I know hugs aren’t allowed right now, but we were masked up and I needed to do it because of all the support he gave throughout. Then I went back to my hotel, washed my face, and poured myself a glass of wine and just sat there and breathed for a while. It honestly hasn’t hit me yet that we did something that was historic. It felt like I grinded through and I got my job done tonight and I performed. I was very proud of that. When people ask me what I do for a living, I usually say I’m a broadcaster, but I never say that I’m a play-by-play. After last night, internally, what that game did for me, after five overtimes and six and a half hours of broadcasting, as I was sitting there sipping my wine, I just said to myself, “Yeah, you’re a play-by-play. You belong here.” That’s a big deal for me. So that’s what I did after the game. I finally realized that I’m a play-by-play announcer.

1a. Jim Nantz has signed a contract extension to stay at CBS Sports.

2. Episode 136 of the Sports Media Podcast with Richard Deitsch examines the NFL media deals. The guests are James Andrew Miller, the best-selling author of books on CAA, ESPN and Saturday Night Live and the host of the “Origins” podcast, and Anthony Crupi, the sports media reporter for Sportico. Miller focuses on the ESPN deal and what it means for that network, including getting in the Super Bowl rotation, more flexibility for games and the historical nature of the deal. Crupi discusses the deals made by CBS, Fox, NBC and Amazon including why each outlet decided to focus on what they did, why the NFL wanted to keep the traditional broadcasters, what it means for Amazon to get exclusivity for Thursday Night Football and more.

You can subscribe to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher and more.

3.Per John Ourand of Sports Business Daily: The designation of Fox as an NFC-only package of games and CBS as an AFC-only package of games will end. Says Ourand: “Starting in 2023, Fox and CBS will identify a specific number of teams that it wants to carry for a specific minimum of games. It’s not known how many teams or games are part of this process, which will occur at some point before the official schedule release … There will be no such thing as a traditional Fox-NFC or CBS-AFC game as in years past. For decades, Fox would carry any game with two NFC teams or any interleague game where the NFC team was on the road. CBS had the AFC games, including any game where the AFC was on the road. Under the new deal, those designations will be stripped away, essentially making all 272 games free agents.”

3a. MLB Network will air a new edition of MLB Tonight: A Conversation on Wednesday at 7:00 p.m. ET that features two hours of programming on women in baseball. Hosted by MLB Network’s Lauren Shehadi, the guests include Marlins GM Kim Ng; New York Yankees Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager Jean Afterman; MLB writer Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and Yankees broadcaster Suzyn Waldman, among others.

4. Sports pieces of note:

• The night Gregg Popovich’s Hall of Fame career nearly died before it began. By Chris Ballard of the L.A. Times.

• Black Figure Skaters See Performing as Their Best Way to Speak Out. By Patrice Peck of the New York Times.

• Welcome to Juan Soto’s MLB. By Jeff Passan of ESPN.

• Charlotte Carroll of The Athletic on freshman Paige Bueckers and the pressures of UConn basketball.

• The NCAA’s shell game is the real women’s basketball scandal. By Sally Jenkins of The Washington Post.

• Charli Collier of Texas Honors Her Father’s Memory With Resilience. By Gillian R. Brassil of the New York Times.

• Via Nieman Lab: Most TV completely ignores women’s sports, a 30-year study finds.

•By Jenny Vrentas of SI: A Massage Therapist on Her Session With Deshaun Watson

Non-sports pieces of note:

• If Aliens Exist, Here’s How We’ll Find Them. By Martin Rees and Mario Livio of Nautilus.

• Videos obtained by The New York Times show for the first time how U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, who died after engaging rioters on Jan. 6, was attacked with chemical spray while guarding the west side of the Capitol.

• Hunting the men who kill women: Mexico’s femicide detective. By Meaghan Beatley of The Guardian.

• The Coal Plant Next Door. By Max Blau of ProPublica.

• Nearly a century after the last wolf was eradicated in California, a lone female arrived and established a pack. Not everyone is cheering. By Richard Grant of Smithsonian Magazine.

• This Is Where 150 Years Of Ignoring Anti-Asian Racism Got Us. By Venessa Wong of Buzzfeed News.

• The untold story of the doctor who fueled a drug crisis. By Brett Popplewell of Toronto Life.

• Via Abbott Kahler of The Marshall Project: A Bestselling Author Became Obsessed With Freeing a Man From Prison. It Nearly Ruined Her Life.

• The Black Nerds Redefining the Culture. By Adam Bradley for The New York Times Style Magazine.

• Is the Pandemic Breaking Our Backs? By Patricia Marx of New Yorker.

• Ken Burns Still Has Faith in a Shared American Story. By David Marchese of The New York Times.

• A husband is dead. His wife and father-in-law were convicted of murder. They claim self-defense and just won a new trial, but in a world of imperfect people, who gets to be a victim? Via Alex Ronan of Elle.

• How Amazon Crushes Unions. By David Streitfeld of the New York Times.

• Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh Bankrolled His Followers. In Return, They Enabled His Risky Lifestyle. By Kirsten Grind and Katherine Sayre of Wall Street Journal.

• The Heiress, the Queen, and the Trillion-Dollar Tax Shelter. By Leah McGrath Goodman of Institutional Investor.

• After surviving the pandemic, workers at a Boulder supermarket felt hopeful. Then, a gunman walked in. By Robert Klemko of Washington Post.

• Poisoned. A special report from the Tampa Bay Times.

(Top photo: Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)