Baseball Tonight - Featured Segments

Featured Segments

Baseball Tonight is split into a number of segments, each of which focuses on a particular aspect of baseball. These segments include:

• 3 up, 3 down: 3 players/teams each that are either on the uprise or downside of their seasons or careers (in the case of players).
• Analysis: a more in-depth look at baseball topics, players, and upcoming games.
• Best Seat in the House: Airs during live editions of Baseball Tonight before Sunday Night Baseball, John Kruk takes a tour on a ballpark and seeks for what he thinks is the best seat in the ballpark.
• Chatter Up: This segment is new for the 2007 season, in which fans get to submit their thoughts on certain subjects via ESPN.com and then they are shown at the bottom of the screen and discussed on the show.
• Diamond Cuts: Airs on the Sunday edition, a montage of the week's best plays set to music.
• Extra Bases: a more in-depth look at a particular game after the highlights have aired.
• Going, Going, Gone: the day's longest home runs.
• Highlights: the most important happenings from the days' Major League Baseball, occasionally also featuring other baseball competitions such as the World Baseball Classic, the College World Series, Minor League Baseball, or the Little League World Series. Virtually every MLB game is shown at least once, more if there are in-progress highlights to report on.
• Inside Pitch: This segment usually features Peter Gammons giving his insight on the latest news and rumors from around baseball.
• Leading Off: usually the first segment of the show, giving the day's most significant baseball news, for example, trades, injury updates and hirings and firings of managers.
• The Week with Tim "Quirkjian": Tim Kurkjian gives unusual stats from the world of baseball. The segment is a play on the analyst's name.
• Most Important Thing: Analysts' comments on the most important story from the day's happenings in MLB. This is usually the final segment of the show.
• On The Phone: a live phone interview with an MLB player, coach, or general manager, usually regarding the most recent game played and outlooks on the future of the team.
• Out of the Box: This segment is similar to Leading Off, where they preview what is coming up on the show.
• Ridiculous Plays of the Week: Usually aired on Fridays, it recaps the five most hilarious plays (and moments) from the past week.
• Stat of the Night: an interesting baseball statistic from the day's happenings in MLB.
• That's Nasty: New in 2007, a segment showing the best pitches, usually with the most movement, of the night.
• Touch 'Em All: significant home runs of the day.
• Smash of the Night: The most significant home run of the day. Usually the longest or biggest scorer like a "Grand Slam."
• Sport Science: Hosted by John Brenkus, this five-minute segment examines a key play through scientific analysis.
• Web Gems: the day's five best defensive plays. On Sundays, the best defensive plays of the entire week air. Points are given to each player and at the end of the season the player with the most points wins a trophy.
• Greatest Home Runs: begun as a temporary segment in honor of Barry Bonds' ascension to the all-time MLB home run champion. Featured the greatest five home runs in the history of a different franchise every day for the duration of the segment; on August 26 (the final day of the segment), the Top 10 Home Runs of All-Time were featured.

One featured running gag on the show is the spoof segment "Name That Molina", where one of the personalities has to guess which of the three Molina catcher brothers – Bengie, Jose, or Yadier – is being shown. "Name that LaRoche" is another spoof segment featuring the two brothers who play for the Pittsburgh Pirates Andy and the Washington Nationals Adam. Another running gag is the Umpire Fantasy League in which "owners" of umpires in this fictitious league are rewarded for their umpires ejecting players or coaches. It is unclear whether this is reference to the real-life Umpire Ejection Fantasy League. Also another gag in session is when an analyst on the show uses the "Stump the host" slogan. This is when the ananlyst has information on a certain players milestone that has just happened on the telecast. An example is when a player hits a home run, double, steals a base, or strikes someone out and the analyst will say "Stump the Host; Career hr/strikeout/2-B/SB/etc. number __? The host very seldom knows the answer but will take a reasonable, and sometimes ludicrous, guess at what the answer might be. This gag is very seldom used but sometimes is quite comical for the fact that the host has no idea what the answer may be.