It’s not like there was anything else happening on Tuesday night.
At least somebody announced the final results of voting
If you had some news you wanted to bury, Tuesday night was the perfect night to drop it. NASA could have announced it had discovered wolves the size of pickup trucks on the surface of Neptune and it would have gone completely unnoticed.
And yet, at 8 p.m. ET, as polls in 17 states closed, Baseball Tonight’s Gold Glove announcement show was just getting started.
Cardinals pitcher Jack Flaherty was among those who thought it was a little weird.
There’s probably a reasonable explanation for why the show was scheduled for Election Day. ESPN, for example, couldn’t air the announcement in prime time on Monday or Wednesday because of live football obligations. Perhaps the network wanted something to air at 8 p.m. on Tuesday and figured the awards show was good low-stakes counter-programming to the election coverage.
In the past two years, the Gold Glove winners were announced at 7 p.m. on a Sunday. That’s a great time to do it. It falls in that window between when the late-afternoon NFL games are wrapping up and when the Sunday-night game begins. In 2017 and 2016, the announcement was made on a Tuesday—and yes, the 2016 announcement also fell on Election Day.
It’s tempting to frame this as an example of MLB being out of touch, but are award announcements really the kind of thing people pay attention to in the first place? Would the Gold Gloves have occupied a significant spot in the news cycle if the winners were announced a week from now? Probably not. It’s just funny that either MLB, Rawlings or ESPN decided to run with it on election night of all nights.
The bigger MLB awards—Rookies of the Year, Managers of the Year, MVP and Cy Young—are scheduled to be announced next week. Hopefully that won’t coincide with a Supreme Court decision on the election.
Here are the Gold Glove winners, while we’re on the subject
American League
Catcher: Roberto Perez (Indians)
First Base: Evan White (Mariners)
Second Base: Cesar Hernandez (Indians)
Third Base: Isiah Kiner-Falefa (Rangers)
Shortstop: J.P. Crawford (Mariners)
Left Field: Alex Gordon (Royals)
Center Field: Luis Robert (White Sox)
Right Field: Joey Gallo (Rangers)
Pitcher: Griffin Canning (Angels)
National League
Catcher: Tucker Barnhart (Reds)
First Base: Anthony Rizzo (Cubs)
Second Base: Kolten Wong (Cardinals)
Third Base: Nolan Arenado (Rockies)
Shortstop: Javier Baez (Cubs)
Left Field: Tyler O'Neill (Cardinals)
Center Field: Trent Grisham (Padres)
Right Field: Mookie Betts (Dodgers)
Pitcher: Max Fried (Braves)
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