The Week That Was: Aug. 25, 2019

Welcome back to The Week That Was, where we have just experienced our last weekend until February with neither the NFL nor Grand Slam tennis.

Milestones:

FC Dallas, formerly known as the Dallas Burn, played its 200th nationally-televised MLS game on Sunday night against the Houston Dynamo.

Dallas is the sixth or seventh team to that milestone; ironically, Houston is the team in question, depending on whether you count the Dynamo (2006-present) as an expansion team or the successor to the 1996-2005 San Jose entry.

Please send help as we have devolved into bookkeeping minutiae.

(This section eagerly awaits the return of football season, where every game is televised and we are two weeks from invoking the name of Frank Gifford.)

Database Updates:

Oct. 18, 1987: Dave Lapham replaces Dave Casper on the Browns-Bengals telecast for NBC. Jay Randolph was the PBP man. 506sports user ak482 does the digging here.

This Week in the Tennis Section:

The year's fourth major begins in Flushing Meadows, New York, and the grounds are pretty much packed for the first four days with 64 matches per day. Novak Djokovic is guaranteed the no. 1 men's ranking at the end of the fortnight while any one of four women could do the deed.

Serena Williams vs. Maria Sharapova is the marquee first-round match; ESPN is plugging that coverage for 7:45 Monday night.

ESPN has the television rights. Daytime coverage is on the mothership every day except Saturday, while primetime is split between ESPN2 (Monday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday) and ESPN (Tuesday, Wednesday, Sunday).

This Week on the Playoff of Dreams:

We move to 1912. Boston and Chicago meet in the American League while Chicago and Pittsburgh play out the string for the right to meet the New York Giants.

The Week That Will Be:

Monday, Aug. 26
3:00 -- YouTube -- Braves at Rockies
7:00 -- ESPN -- Cardinals at Brewers
10:00 -- ESPN -- Yankees at Mariners

Tuesday, Aug. 27
7:00 -- MLBN -- Cubs at Mets
10:00 -- FS1 -- Rangers at Angels

Wednesday, Aug. 28
None scheduled.

Thursday, Aug. 29
7:00 -- FS1 -- USWNT vs. Portugal at Philadelphia

Friday, Aug. 30
7:00 -- MLBN -- Athletics at Yankees

Saturday, Aug. 31
6:00 -- FS1 -- Mets at Phillies

Sunday, Sept. 1
1:00 -- TBS -- Athletics at Yankees
6:00 -- FS1 -- Sounders vs. Galaxy
7:00 -- ESPN -- Mets at Phillies

The Week That Was: Aug. 18, 2019

Welcome back to The Week That Was, where we're two weeks away from the beginning of the only sport where every game makes the databases.

Milestones:

The Brewers-Pirates game on Wednesday, Aug. 7, was the 11,500th MLB telecast in our database. Jon Sciambi, David Ross and Ryan Howard called it for ESPN.

On Saturday, Aug. 10, Eric Karros was the analyst for his 224th MLB national telecast, a Phillies-Giants game from San Francisco on FS1 with Eric Collins. That broke a tie with Bob Brenly and Jeff Torborg for 14th on the MLB analyst list, but created a new tie for 13th with Maury Wills.

Less than 24 hours later on Sunday, Aug. 11, Ron Darling took hold of #11 on the same analyst list, breaking a tie with Orel Hershiser as he broke down the Angels and Red Sox from Fenway Park. Ernie Johnson was the play-by-play man on TBS.

Friday, Aug. 16, was Jon Morosi's turn in the spotlight for the second straight post. He handled field-reporter duties for an Indians-Yankees game in New York, moving him past Chris Myers into 10th place on the list of MLB field reporters. It was his 74th such game.

Kenny Albert assumed the title of 15th-most-frequent MLB commentator on Saturday, Aug. 17, with the Brewers-Nationals game on FS1. With Albert's 405th national MLB game, he passed Gary Thorne to take that spot, working alongside Joe Girardi and Ken Rosenthal.

Database Updates:

Dec. 4, 1990: Ron Thulin and Hubie Brown move from guesses to confirmations on the Suns-Bulls game.

This Date In History:

Thursday, Aug. 15 marked the 29th anniversary of Terry Mulholland's no-hitter, called for ESPN by Steve Zabriskie and Bob Gibson.

This Week in the Tennis Section:

Nothing this week as the tours play low-level events in New York and Winston-Salem ahead of next week's US Open.

This Week on the Playoff of Dreams:

The 1911 World Series began Saturday between the Tigers and Giants.

The Week That Will Be:

Monday, Aug. 19
None scheduled.

Tuesday, Aug. 20
10:00 -- ESPN -- Yankees at Athletics

Wednesday, Aug. 21
3:30 -- YouTube -- Rockies at Diamondbacks
8:00 -- TUDN-UDN -- DC United vs. Red Bulls
10:00 -- ESPN -- Yankees at Athletics
10:30 -- TUDN-UDN -- LAFC vs. Earthquakes

Thursday, Aug. 22
9:30 -- ESPN -- Sporting KC vs. Minnesota United

Friday, Aug. 23
8:00 -- ESPN -- Orlando City vs. Atlanta United
10:00 -- ESPN -- Timbers vs. Sounders

Saturday, Aug. 24
4:00 -- FS1 -- Yankees at Dodgers
7:00 -- FS1 -- Rockies at Cardinals
7:00 -- ESPN2 -- NYCFC vs. Red Bulls

Sunday, Aug. 25
2:00 -- TBS -- Nationals at Cubs
6:00 -- FS1 -- Cincinnati vs. Crew
7:00 -- ESPN -- Yankees at Dodgers
8:00 -- FS1 -- Dallas vs. Dynamo
10:00 -- FS1 -- LAFC vs. Galaxy

The Week That Was: Aug. 4, 2019

Welcome back to The Week That Was, where last week had an off night and this week has two.

Milestones:

On Monday night, Jon Morosi handled MLB field-reporting duties for the 73rd time as the Angels hosted the Tigers on YouTube. Morosi's 73rd game in that capacity matched Chris Myers for the 10th-most on record.

Tuesday night's Cubs-Cardinals tilt was a double milestone, as John Smoltz passed Buck Martinez for sixth on the list of MLB color commentators with his 353rd game and Bob Costas tied Dan Shulman for 10th on the total list with his 454th game. Jackie Redmond was the field reporter.

Costas went on to pass Shulman on Friday night with the Red Sox-Yankees game.

Finally, on Sunday, Ron Darling worked the Brewers-Cubs game at Wrigley Field alongside Brian Anderson for TBS. His 228th game as a national color commentator tied Orel Hershiser for 11th on that list.

Database Updates:

Oct. 25, 1979: Don Meredith, not Fran Tarkenton, worked Monday Night Football with Frank Gifford and Howard Cosell at the Oakland Coliseum.

This Date In History:

Friday, Aug. 9 is the 31st anniversary of the first official night game at Wrigley Field. While you may have seen the YouTube footage of the first night game's pomp and circumstance on Aug. 8, that game was rained out and the one that counted was 24 hours later. Vin Scully and Joe Garagiola called it and Marv Albert hosted on site.

This Week in the Tennis Section:

We return to the men's Masters 1000 events and the women's Premier tier in the Rogers Cup at Toronto and Montreal.

This Week on the Playoff of Dreams:

Beginning on Saturday, it's the 1911 League Championship Series.

The Week That Will Be:

Monday, Aug. 5
8:00 -- ESPN -- Athletics at Cubs

Tuesday, Aug. 6
None scheduled.

Wednesday, Aug. 7
3:00 -- YouTube -- Cardinals at Dodgers
7:00 -- ESPN -- Brewers at Pirates

Thursday, Aug. 8
9:30 -- YouTube -- Phillies at Giants

Friday, Aug. 9
None scheduled.

Saturday, Aug. 10
4:00 -- FS1 -- Phillies at Giants
8:30 -- FS1 -- Rockies at Pirates

Sunday, Aug. 11
1:00 -- TBS -- Angels at Red Sox
4:00 -- ESPN -- Atlanta United vs. NYCFC
7:00 -- ESPN -- Phillies at Giants
7:30 -- FS1 -- DC United vs. Galaxy
10:00 -- FS1 -- LAFC vs. Red Bulls