Daily Sports: A Good Baseball Night On MLB Network

MLB Network will split its coverage on Tuesday night, but whether you get the American League game or the National League option, you’re going to have a big battle in the playoff race. It’s Rays-Orioles from Camden Yards, and Diamondbacks-Reds suiting up on the banks of the Ohio River, starting at 7 PM ET.

TheSportsNotebook has featured both the Reds and Orioles here over the last five days, and now they’re at the heart of the sports fan’s daily sports agenda.

I know for many of you, baseball ends the moment that preseason football starts, and that you might prefer to do a little film study, so to speak. NFL Network will be replaying games from this past week, and tonight’s prime-time feature is the 49ers-Chiefs. That showing will start at 8 PM ET.

Speaking of preseasons, don’t look now, but the NHL’s preseason is going to start in less than a month. I know, it seems just like a couple weeks ago that Dave Bolland tapped in a goal near the net and won the Stanley Cup for the Chicago Blackhawks. For those of us who are fans of the Boston Bruins, the long road to emotional healing can start when our troops get back on the ice.

Anyway, the point to all this is that the NHL Network has a nice two-hour feature tonight if you want to get into the hockey mood in August. The year is 2001 and the Colorado Avalanche and New Jersey Devils played a great seven-game Stanley Cup Finals.

At 7 PM ET, there’s a recap of that Finals, and then an hour later it’s a celebration of the entire season for the ultimately victorious Avalanche. Those were the days when Patrick Roy was in goal for Colorado, and now Roy is back for his first year as a head coach to help rebuild the franchise.

The focus of TheSportsNotebook today is college football coverage. Of the five power conferences, the only one that hasn’t previewed yet is the ACC, and we’ll rectify that later today.