Mike Barnicle on Baseball

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.

Watch this Morning Joe conversation between Mike Barnicle and sportscaster Jim Gray about his golfing experiences with Donald Trump who wanted “the moniker of the best” and his opinion on whether baseball great Pete Rose belongs in the Hall of Fame. Gray’s new memoir, “Talking To GOATs: The Moments You Remember and the Stories You Never Heard” details his relationships with iconic sports figures Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Tom Brady, Kobe Bryant, Michael Phelps and others.

Tune in for this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle as they remember Tom Seaver, a Hall of Fame baseball pitcher and the hero of New York’s Miracle Mets, who has passed away at 75 years old from complications of Lewy body dementia and COVID-19. “Tom Seaver was an artist. To watch him perform on the mound with the New York Mets, especially Mr. Met, was an incredible experience. He was a legitimate Hall of Famer before they even voted him into the Hall of Fame,” says Barnicle. Hear more here.

“Oh, it couldn’t be more appropriate than to have Dr. Anthony Fauci on the mound, on the hill, for the Washington Nationals opener. It just couldn’t be more perfect,” says Morning Joe contributor Mike Barnicle during this conversation with Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski about news that Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert amid the coronavirus pandemic, will throw out the ceremonial first pitch at the first game of Major League Baseball’s pandemic-delayed regular season.

Morning Joe’s Willie Geist and Mike Barnicle talk baseball and the viability of a 2020 MLB season amid the coronavirus pandemic, following MLB teams being forced to cancel practices after failing to receive COVID-19 testing results, players contracting the virus and more. “I think the season is jump ball right now,” says Barnicle. Join the conversation here.

The Morning Joe panel discusses the 2019 World Series champion Washington Nationals’ trip to the White House to celebrate their victory with President Donald Trump and whether star pitcher Stephen Strasburg will rejoin the team after opting out of the final four years of his contract, three days after being chosen MVP of the World Series. Hear what Willie Geist, Claire McCaskill and Mike Barnicle predict Strasburg’s next move will be.