Mike Barnicle on Baseball

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Mika Brzezinski, Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they contrast two recent occurrences in Major League Baseball: New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge having an emotional meeting with the 9-year-old fan whose story went viral after he had his wish come true when a Toronto Blue Jays fan gifted him with a Aaron Judge home run ball he caught and Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Madison Bumgarner being ejected after the first inning of his start against the Miami Marlins after a confrontation with first-base umpire Dan Bellin. “I prefer to focus on the New York Yankees and Aaron Judge and that little boy because, as Joe just indicated, that capsulizes the romance of baseball. You pass it on to your sons, your daughters, and they carry it through. That was just a wonderful moment, wonderful moment,” says Barnicle about Judge’s meeting with the young fan. Watch the segment here.

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle as they slam the election standards for the National Baseball Hall of Fame that have excluded certain all-time great Major League Baseball players due to their checkered histories, following the homerun king Barry Bonds and legendary pitcher Roger Clemens being denied entry during their last year of eligibility. “Let’s stop being ridiculous. Admit what happened. Explain what happened and put them in the Hall of Fame where they belong,” says Barnicle about all-time great baseball players who are being denied entry to the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Join the conversation here.

Way Too Early’s Jonathan Lemire and veteran columnist Mike Barnicle pay tribute to Boston Red Sox legend David Ortiz, who was just inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame his first time on the ballot, while lamenting that homerun king Barry Bonds and all-time great pitcher Roger Clemens were denied entry during their final year of eligibility. “Bonds and Clemens—they both deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, and they should be in the Hall of Fame,” says Barnicle. “And there should be an asterisk and an explanation of why it took them so long to attain Hall of Fame status on their plaque. You can’t ignore the fact that two of the greatest players in the history of Major League Baseball are now off the ballot after ten years.” Watch more of the conversation here.

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle as they discuss their beloved Boston Red Sox with the team facing elimination after a game 5 loss to the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series. “It’s been a wonderful year. We’ve been blessed with many, many victories that we didn’t expect, and we’re still here….You win some, you lose some, but you’ve got to dress for all of them. And we’ll be dressed tomorrow night in Houston, ready to go,” says Barnicle.

Morning Joe’s Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle discuss the 2021 Major League Baseball playoffs, including home plate umpire Laz Diaz missing a strike-three call with two outs in a tie game during the ninth inning that ultimately led to the Houston Astros defeating the Boston Red Sox in Game 4 of the American League Championship Series. “You can’t blame a single call for a loss in a game. You know that. But it was a pretty brutal night in the ninth inning at Fenway Park,” says Barnicle about the blown strike-three call by Diaz. Watch the rest of the conversation here.

Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Jonathan Lemire and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the 2021 MLB playoffs after the Boston Red Sox – under the leadership of manager Alex Cora – beat the Tampa Bay Rays to advance to the American League Championship Series. “Alex Cora has them extremely focused. The other night when Chris Sale gave up the grand slam home run, it was 5-2, suddenly, just like that, and Alex Cora at the break in the inning, he walked up and down that bench and said, ‘look at it this way, we are behind 3-0. It’s the first inning. We got a lot to go. We’re going to win this game.’ He’s got them extraordinarily focused, but they are the underdog,” says Barnicle about the Red Sox who will play against the Houston Astros in the American League Championship Series. Join the conversation here.

Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle as they discuss the 2021 Major League Baseball playoffs after the Los Angeles Dodgers defeated the San Francisco Giants to force a decisive game five in the National League Division Series. “The San Francisco Giants have been one of the most vastly underrated baseball teams in Major League Baseball throughout the year. Here they are. They are on the verge of winning their series with the Dodgers, and as Willie pointed out, I mean, the win-loss records were incredibly close, and the Dodgers’ payroll is probably one-third higher than the San Francisco Giants’ and yet here they are, San Francisco,” says Barnicle about the Giants who set a franchise record with 107 wins and ended the Dodgers’ National League West reign of eight straight seasons. Join the conversation here.

Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation with Joe Scarborough, Willie Geist, Jonathan Lemire, Mika Brzezinski and Mike Barnicle as they recap and discuss the Boston Red Sox having ended the New York Yankees season with a 6-2 win in the AL-Wild Card game at Fenway Park. “One of the big underlying stories, Joe, last night has to do with everything that we’ve been through as a nation and as a world across the last 19 to 20 months, suffering from COVID. The Red Sox, of course, had several unvaccinated players. But the crowd last night was as electric and as together—literally, figuratively together—close together; 38,000 people in that ballpark with noise and clamor and excitement that I haven’t seen or heard in that ballpark in maybe two to three years. And the funny, odd thing last night, when the Massachusetts state lottery number came up just prior to the game: The winning numbers were announced at about seven o’clock, and the numbers were one, nine, seven, eight—true story, 1978, the Bucky Dent year,” says Barnicle as he recalls former Yankee Bucky Dent who hit a home run in a tie-breaker game against the Red Sox at Fenway Park at the end of the 1978 regular season. Watch the whole conversation here.

Join this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle about Los Angeles Angels hitter and pitcher Shohei Ohtani, who has dominated this MLB season. “He’s more than just a phenomenon….He’s multitalented. And he plays for a manager in Joe Maddon, who’s an old school guy who loves baseball and has made the decision to allow Ohtani to both appear at the plate as a hitter when Ohtani is on the mound pitching. It’s a tremendous show. I’d pay to go see him,” says Barnicle. Learn more about Ohtani here.

Watch this Morning Joe conversation with Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle as Barnicle dissects the ongoing saga over Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred’s controversial decision to remove the 2021 All-Star Game from Georgia after the state created more restrictive voting laws, to the dismay of Georgia Democrat Stacey Abrams who urged MLB to keep the All-Star Game in her state, which will reportedly lose an estimated $100 million in revenue from the move. “Baseball has always lagged behind the other professional sports, especially the National Basketball Association, in terms of addressing prominent, social and cultural issues, especially regarding race in this country, and this is an opportunity for (Manfred) to declare Major League Baseball on the right side of history, which he did, and he did it by himself,” says Barnicle. Hear more of the details here.