Matt Vasgersian Has Announced He's Leaving ESPN's Sunday Night Baseball Booth
Play-by-player Matt Vasgersian informed ESPN executives that he is leaving his position on “Sunday Night Baseball,” The Post has learned.
After four years teamed with Alex Rodriguez, Vasgersian wants to focus on new, pending deals with MLB Network, and potentially expand his work on Angels’ regional telecasts.
“I decided to call it a wrap on ‘Sunday Night Baseball,’” Vasgersian said when reached by The Post. “I can’t do everything I enjoy with MLB Network and the Angels, while still being away for nearly 30 weekends a year.”
I feel there's a pretty good split on whether people enjoy Matty V in the Sunday Night Baseball booth or hate his guts. You either love "SANTA MARIA" or want to cut your ears off when he's screaming it as a ball blasts into the o-zone. For me, I'm never going to complain about a guy who is enthusiastic about the game of baseball. I've never been bothered by Vasgersian being in the Sunday Night Baseball booth. A-Rod is another story.
Anyways, Vasgersian has announced he's leaving to focus more on the Angels play by play and his MLB network duties so that means ESPN has to find a new face of the play by play booth on Sunday nights. A-Rod apparently will be returning to the chagrin of many. So who will the world wide leader pair with him?
The potential replacements for Vasgersian include Boog Sciambi, Karl Ravech, Jason Benetti, Michael Kay, Ryan Ruocco and Dave Flemming.
I really would have no problem with any of those options aside from Kay, who I personally hear too much from as it is on the YES Network. I don't see him calling national games these days, but I could be wrong. Boog, Benetti, Flemming, Ravech would all be solid choices. Zero complaints coming on any of those candidates.
My personal pick, however, would be Ryan Ruocco. Despite having his hand in a million cookie jars these days (Brooklyn Nets games, filling in for Kay, ESPN NBA, WNBA, Boxing, etc) I still feel like he's a super underrated voice in the sports world who hasn't had his true big break yet. Ruocco is a blast. His calls are excellent, he loves the game, and he's a joy to listen to over the course of a 3+ hour game. Whenever I find out he's going to be on the call for the Yankees I get excited. There's also this weird aura around him where every game he calls is batshit crazy. It's pretty much illegal for a boring game to happen on his watch. Give him a call.