At 6:15 p.m. yesterday, SNY, ESPN, MLB Network, CNN, and local affiliates for CBS, NBC, FOX and ABC cut from their regular programming to show live footage of Alex Rodriguez carefully measuring time between stilted breaths, explaining he was fighting for his life, at the Yankees’ news conference.
But YES Network, whose programming includes anything even vaguely related to the Yankees, instead bizarrely stuck with its schtick — er, “Stick” — showing a Gene Michael “Yankeeography.”
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The news conference included Rodriguez sidestepping questions about performance-enhancing drugs after the league leveled a 211-game suspension against him, which he will appeal.
The conference’s interest rivaled that of any team news conference from the past decade — though the Yankees’ network didn’t seem to think so.
Once the Yankeeography mercifully concluded at 7 p.m., YES finally showed footage of the Rodriguez news conference supplemented with analysis by Bob Lorenz and Jack Curry.
“[Showing the news conference at 7 p.m.] enabled us to package everything into a smooth-running cohesive show that incorporated all of the latest developing news of the afternoon,” explained Eric Handler, YES spokesman, in an email. “Also, by going at 7 pm, we had a potentially bigger audience for our show than we’d have during the 6:00 hour.”
YES did live-tweet the news conference, though Rodriguez’s timely pauses as he searched through his emotions were unfortunately not conveyed.