Daily Sports: MLB Interleague Rivalries On Tuesday

Major league baseball is in the midst of a run of interleague rivalry games that began yesterday, and ESPN has a bi-coastal doubleheader tonight, starting with Mets-Yankees at 7 PM ET, and then showing Angels-Dodgers at 10 PM ET.

I have to say I’m not sure why MLB insists on taking all the fun interleague series and playing them all at once. The schedule also includes matchups like Orioles-Nationals, Cubs-White Sox, Royals-Cardinals and if you’re from the Midwest, Twins-Brewers has a little juice. Okay, this year, that’s a very little juice.

But the point is that these games are, to varying degrees, the most marketable of all the interleague games. Why jam them all on the same days? When the Houston Astros shifted to the American League, balancing the leagues at 15 teams apiece, and necessitating an interleague series in each schedule sequence, I thought this scheduling oddity would go away. I guess not, and since ESPN assumes the entire world wants to watch New York and Los Angeles, the chance to see some other fun rivalry series will go by the boards.

Intense playoff action continues on the ice and the hardwood for tonight’s daily sports. Game 4 of the Miami Heat-Indiana Pacers series is at 8:30 PM ET on TNT. After Indiana lost Game 3, this has become the game the Pacers need to win, not just for their sake, but to get really tuned into this series. Otherwise, just let me know when the Miami-San Antonio championship battle begins.

There’s no question what the biggest game of the night is, and it’s out in Los Angeles. The Dodgers and Angels might be playing for the city’s baseball heart, but in the NHL, the Kings host the San Jose Sharks in a Game 7 of their second-round series. The puck drops at 9 PM ET on NBC SportsNetwork, and starts a two-day sequence of Game 7s in the Western Conference, including Detroit-Chicago tomorrow.

If you want to watch something beyond the game and are hungry for the NFL, ESPN2 will have a 30-for-30 special on the 1983 NFL draft, the one which produced John Elway, Dan Marino and Jim Kelly, among others and until 2012, was considered the gold standard for quarterback drafts. It actually still is the gold standard, but the ’12 class of RG3, Luck, Wilson & Co., is the first one to be a viable threat to that status.

The documentary’s been running for a bit now, and it airs again tonight at 7 PM ET. You can also watch the story of the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, who won the Super Bowl under Brian Billick, at 8 PM ET on the NFL Network.

Here at TheSportsNotebook, we’ll have NHL analysis today, honing in on the battles in the Western Conference. Yesterday’s MLB coverage gave a soundbite summation of all 30 teams at the Memorial Day checkpoint. NBA commentary will resume tomorrow, to celebrate San Antonio and assess where Miami-Indiana is at.