Fox Sports will be putting a new spin on the favorite MLB rivalry game of television partners when the New York Yankees play the Boston Red Sox on June 6.
According to a report from Andrew Marchand at The Athletic, Fox will take the unique step of putting their entire studio crew of Kevin Burkhardt, David Ortiz, Alex Rodriguez, and Derek Jeter all in the broadcast booth to announce the game.
The quartet has several years of experience together in the studio, and some of their most notable interactions have naturally centered around their experiences on both sides of the rivalry, with Ortiz leading the Red Sox to their famous ALCS comeback and multiple World Series titles. Jeter won five championships with the Yankees as one of the most popular players in franchise history, while Rodriguez won one ring with the Bronx Bombers in 2009.
“We know people are tuning in to see the game. We always appreciate that fact. What will be different is the depth of storytelling that we can tell with these guys all in the booth for the length of the game,” said Fox Sports president Brad Zager in the reveal.
Burkhardt has extensive play-by-play experience as the lead voice for the NFL on Fox and has also called numerous baseball games throughout his career. Rodriguez served as a game analyst at ESPN for a brief stint with Michael Kay. However, this will be the first game broadcast for Jeter and Ortiz.
A four-man broadcast booth is naturally going to be a very crowded place, so it’s hard to predict exactly how this will go. But it sounds as if it’s going to be equal parts game call and equal parts story time with three legends of the series. As we’ve seen time and again over the years, game broadcasts aren’t really the place to reinvent the wheel and experiment. But maybe Fox can find a way to make this work. At the very least, it should provide some viral moments, especially if Jason Varitek does a run-in to even the odds.
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