Is ESPN Pro Boston Red Sox?

Living in St Petersburg FL, it is no secret to me that as of July 30, 2008, the Tampa Bay Rays are in first place. I am a die hard sports fan. I fall asleep to SportsCenter and Baseball Tonight. These days I have to be careful not to fall prey to subliminal messaging as I dream of a community changing over it's baseball team's success.

In the midst of firsts for the Rays, I tune into ESPN SportsCenter. I see a very short highlight package of another Rays win. No focus, no centerpiece. Before that comes the Red Sox highlights. The Red Sox highlights are more lengthy, I even get to see a 2-1 pitch from Dice-K that has no effect on the outcome of the game. I am clearly frustrated. This seems to happen every night. The Rays get very limited highlights while I have to hear about "Manny being Manny" every two seconds. What about hearing about Joe Maddon's glasses or his witty one liners? What about Evan Longoria as a possible MVP candidate? Nope. We get to hear about the status of Curt Schilling's shoulder injury, when we all know his days are done. Peter Gammons.... Red Sox fan... What happened to unbiased reporting?

I check online to see the MLB standings on ESPN.com. The Rays are in first place, of course. But look at ESPN's made-up hypothetical playoff probability statistic. That's right, the one on the far right. I guess this is the stat based on "historical achievements, etc", but I guess they forgot about that way too long stretch of Boston's inability to win a title. As of today, July 30, Boston's probability of winning the division, winning the wild card, and making the playoff's, are all greater than the Rays. Compare that to the Yankees probabilities. The Yankees have only won 26 world championships. Look at that, their playoff probability numbers are lower than the Red Sox as well.

I know ESPN is headquartered in New England which is where Boston is, but this propaganda is ridiculous. I guess if ESPN wants to isolate their audience to one section of the country, that is their business.

For now, at least I know who has the greater chance of making the playoffs since they are in first place. At least I know to tune into SportsCenter during the second half of the show to see the highlights that I want to see.