Wednesday Night Baseball is a live game telecast of Major League Baseball that airs every Wednesday night during the regular season on ESPN. The game starts at 7pm ET, following SportsCenter, and usually lasts around three hours with an hour-long Baseball Tonight following the game leading up to the 11pm ET SportsCenter. The official name is ESPN Wednesday Night Baseball presented by Hankook Tire. Every April some broadcastsair on ESPN2 due to ESPN's priority with Wednesday's NBA coverage. Wednesday Night Baseball is not exclusive to ESPN. The teams' local broadcasters may still air the game. ESPNEWS is seen on ESPN during the game in the teams' designated markets, unless local broadcasters choose not to televise the game. ESPN's blackout can be lifted in the latter scenario. On double-headers in September, due to the broadcast of Monday Night Football, either one of the Wednesday Night Baseball games will co-exist with the local markets' carriers and will not always be subject to blackout.
Commentators
A complete list of broadcasters, with their period of tenure on the show.
Current
Jon Sciambi:
Rick Sutcliffe:
Steve Levy:
Sean McDonough:
Karl Ravech:
Chipper Jones:
Past
Manny Acta:
Erin Andrews:
Chris Berman:
Bonnie Bernstein:
Steve Berthiaume:
Aaron Boone:
Jeff Brantley:
Dave Campbell:
Bob Carpenter:
Duke Castiglione:
Nomar Garciaparra:
Doug Glanville:
Pedro Gomez
Orel Hershiser:
Tim Kurkjian:
Barry Larkin:
Buck Martinez:
Mark Mulder:
Joe Morgan:
Dave O'Brien:
Steve Phillips:
David Ross:
Curt Schilling:
Dan Shulman:
History
The program debuted in 1990, when ESPN first acquired MLB rights. From 2000 to 2005, broadcasts consisted of a doubleheader, usually airing the first game at 7pm ET on ESPN and the second at 10pm ET on ESPN2. The second part of the doubleheader was discontinued after 2005 season. Wednesdays also formerly included an afternoon game, called ESPN DayGame which aired typically at 12:30pm or 1pm ET on ESPN, making Wednesdays ESPN's primary day of baseball, as games aired both in the afternoon and in primetime. However, ESPN DayGame was also discontinued following the 2006 season.
