Apple’s Friday Night Baseball franchise is slated to return in 2023, but Katie Nolan and Melanie Newman won’t be members of the broadcast crews.
Nolan was an analyst on the “West” broadcast team in 2022, while Newman worked primarily as the play-by-play announcer for the “East” crew.
A former ESPN and FS1 host, Nolan told Mike Golic Jr. last spring she brought a unique perspective to the broadcast.
“What I bring to the table is ‘Hey, ump’s pants are really big. Are we ever going to talk about why they don’t know how to hem their pants properly?'”Nolan said. “I’ve been thinking it, so I’m going to say it.”
Newman will continue her work with the Baltimore Orioles and MLB Network after her one season calling games for Apple.
Wayne Randazzo is expected to become the play-by-play announcer for one of the network’s two crews, and Dontrelle Willis is expected to join the network as a game analyst, according to a report from Andrew Marchand of The New York Post.
Randazzo — who called select games for Apple in 2022 — left the New York Mets radio network for a position with the Los Angeles Angels television booth for the upcoming season.
The return of Stephen Nelson to the Apple broadcast teams also remains in flux. Nelson signed to serve as an understudy to Joe Davis with the Los Angeles Dodgers television crew, where he’ll call at least 50 games on Spectrum SportsNet LA in 2023.
So the worst broadcasts in Major sports are now being blown up. Good on Apple for figuring out they needed to make a major change.