Daily Sports: Bull Durham & A Blizzard Is Thursday On TV

We’re still a day away from having regular season baseball back, as MLB extended the All-Star break to Friday as of last season. So if you want baseball today, you’ll have to settle for the minor leagues and for a movie. Actually the movie in question is big league, as MLB Network shows Bull Durham at 8 PM ET. It’s a sign of how dry the prime-time schedule is that the Kevin Costner/Susan Sarandon film is really the highlight of Thursday’s daily sports schedule.

You will note I called it the highlight of the “prime-time schedule.” Because golf starts a big four days this morning, with The British Open. ESPN will have coverage and today it begins at 7 AM ET and goes non-stop until 6 PM EST.

If you’re that rare person who longs for winter in the midst of the summer months, then the NFL Network can bring you some comfort. Their historical feature of choice tonight is the 2001 AFC divisional playoff game between the Oakland Raiders and New England Patriots. This game is remembered as either the “Snow Bowl”, or the “Tuck Rule Game”, but whatever you call it, it’s where the legend of Tom Brady began.

The Patriots rallied in a New England blizzard to force overtime against the Raiders, where they eventually won it. The 2001 New England Patriots won the first of the franchise’s five AFC titles and three Super Bowl rings in the Brady/Bill Belichick era, and after the 90-minute showing of the playoff game, there will be a half-hour feature on the ’01 Patriots’ season-long quest. Hard to believe that back then, they were the team America loved as the underdog.

TheSportsNotebook added features yesterday looking at both the American League and National League All-Star lineups, not because I’m trying to be behind the curve, but because I’m looking ahead—part of our MLB coverage in the season’s second half will be looking at who should be the All-Stars at the end of the year, not just in the middle.