Daily Sports: Catch Your Breath With Friday Baseball

Friday offers a chance to catch your breath as the championship pace of daily sports takes a break after last night’s exciting Game 7 of the NBA Finals in Miami. The Heat are in the books as champions, and the Stanley Cup Final doesn’t resume until Saturday when the Boston Bruins and Chicago Blackhawks play Game 5.

But the theme of championship action and some thrilling finishes can still be enjoyed on today’s daily sports docket. The feature game of the MLB Network is the Texas Rangers’ visit to the St. Louis Cardinals, starting at 8 PM ET. If you haven’t had your fill of a professional sports franchise from Texas having a Game 6 in its grasp, letting it slip and then losing Game 7, the Rangers-Cardinals offers a chance to wake up the echoes of the 2011 World Series.

And in terms of actual championship competition, the College World Series has a day-night doubleheader that could settle the participants in next week’s best-of-three final. Mississippi State gets the first of its two chances to defeat Oregon State at 3 PM ET on ESPN. Then on the same network at 8 PM ET, it’s UCLA who will get consecutive chances to knock out #1-ranked North Carolina and move on.

The NFL Network has a couple nice little features on recent history. At 8 PM ET, you can look back on the 2007 New York Giants, who barely fought their way into the playoffs, then won consecutive road games at Dallas and Green Bay, and then shocked the undefeated New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. The Giants’ win over the Packers ended the Green Bay career of Brett Favre, and at 9 PM ET, the NFL Network looks back at the 10 best games of Favre’s illustrious career.

Here at TheSportsNotebook, our Friday agenda is obvious—sort out how Game 7 went down . We’ll also offer some reflections on the season as a whole, as NBA commentary takes a break until October. That’s coming up a little later, and in the meantime, you can check yesterday’s NHL analysis, which updated the Stanley Cup Final after four games. And last night, there was a double dip on MLB coverage, as we looked more closely at the Toronto Blue Jays, who have gotten hot, and the San Diego Padres, who have snuck into the NL West race.