This year seemingly saw an end to a strange-but-loved regional baseball broadcasting tradition. That would be the “POOP Series,” or the times when NBC Sports Philadelphia’s standard of using team logos on scorebugs meant the Phillies and Pirates produced an, uh, interesting acronym when games between them were 0-0. A change to city names on the scorebug seemed to mark the end of that:
But, after a lot of collective mourning, POOP made an unexpected return. It was back for the NBC Sports Philadelphia+ (authentication-required bonus coverage) of a Spring Breakout game between Phillies’ and Pirates’ prospects Friday, available on that extra feed locally (the main NBC Sports Philadelphia channel was airing a radio show) or on MLB.tv nationally. Here’s how that looked:
It remains to be seen if there will be a higher-level, actual-TV return of POOP from NBC Sports Philadelphia. The Phillies face the Pirates in a more-standard spring training game Tuesday, but that looks to be set for a MLB Network (out-of-market only) broadcast. The cross-league rivals then don’t play in the actual MLB season until May 16. But, for one Friday in March at least, we got the return of POOP.
About Andrew Bucholtz
Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.