Mic’d up during ESPN Sunday night games draws rave reviews

By JOE REEDY
AP Sports Writer

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Major League Baseball has taken its fair share of criticism for changes trying to get younger fans interested in the game, but there has been one this season that has generated rave reviews. MLB has expanded letting players being mic’d up and interviewed during games after doing it on a limited basis from 2017-20. It has become a weekly occurrence on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.” Fox first did the in-game interviews with players during the 2017 All-Star Game in Miami. ESPN followed in 2018-19 in spring training and had it for the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. It was put on hold last year due to frayed relations with the MLB Players Association. But with labor peace, mic’d up is back with ESPN seeing most of the benefits so far.