History of Monday Night Baseball

The following is an overview of the networks to nationally televise Major League Baseball games on Mondays in prime time.
The NBC years (1967-1969; 1972-1975)
Monday Night Baseball was born on October 19, 1966 when NBC signed a three year contract to televise the game. Under the deal, NBC paid roughly 6 million per year for the 25 Games of the Week, $6.1 million for the 1967 World Series and 1967 All-Star Game, and $6.5 million for the 1968 World Series and 1968 All-Star Game. This brought the total value of the contract (which included three Monday night telecasts) up to $30.6 million.
From 1972-1975 NBC televised Monday games under a contract worth $72 million. In 1973, NBC extended the Monday night telecasts to 15 straight (with a local blackout). September 1, 1975 saw NBC's last Monday Night Baseball game, in which the Montréal Expos beat the Philadelphia Phillies 6-5.
Curt Gowdy called the games for NBC with Tony Kubek from 1972-1974. Joe Garagiola would replace Gowdy on play-by-play in 1975. In 1973, Gowdy and Kubek were joined by various celebrity guests (from in and out of the baseball world) on Monday night telecasts.
The ABC years (1976-1988)
ABC would pick up the television rights for Monday Night Baseball games in the following year. Just like with Monday Night Football, ABC brought in the concept of the three-man-booth (originally composed of Bob Prince, Bob Uecker, and Warner Wolf as the primary crew) to their baseball telecasts.
Ratings were typically poor for ABC's Monday night games, and by 1986, ABC only televised 13 Monday Night Baseball games. This was a fairly sharp contrast to the 18 games to that were scheduled in 1978. The Sporting News suggested that ABC paid Major League Baseball to not make them televise the regular season, opining that the network only wanted the sport for October anyway. For most of its time on ABC, the Monday night games were held on "dead travel days" when few games were scheduled. The team owners liked that arrangement, as the ABC games didn't compete against their stadium box offices and local telecasts. The network, on the other hand, found the arrangement far more complicated; ABC often had only one or two games to pick from for each telecast from a schedule designed by Major League Baseball. While trying to give all of the teams national exposure, ABC ended up with way too many games between sub .500 clubs from small markets.
In 1989 (the final year of ABC's contract with Major League Baseball), ABC moved the baseball telecasts to Thursday nights in hopes of getting a leg up against NBC's Cosby Show. The network also aired some late-season games on Sunday afternoons.
ABC's MNB announcers
Play-by-play
*Gary Bender (1987-1988)
*Don Drysdale (1978-1986)
*Keith Jackson (1977-1982; 1986)
*Jim Lampley (1977-1979)
*Al Michaels (1976-1989)
*Bob Prince (1976)
*Gary Thorne (1989)
*Bob Uecker (1976-1982)
Color commentary
*Lou Brock (1980)
*Norm Cash (1976)
*Howard Cosell (1977-1985)
*Don Drysdale (1978-1986)
*Bob Gibson (1976-1977)
*Tim McCarver (1984-1989)
*Joe Morgan (1988-1989)
*Jim Palmer (1984-1989)
*Steve Stone (1982-1983)
*Bob Uecker (1976-1982)
*Earl Weaver (1983-1984)
*Bill White (1976-1979)
*Warner Wolf (1976-1977)
The ESPN years (2002-present)
The series returned in 2002 as ESPN (which is incidentally, as is the case with ABC, currently owned by The Walt Disney Company) created a package under its deal for national cable rights.
Several things changed to Monday Night Baseball in the eight year television contract that ESPN signed with Major League Baseball on September 14, 2005. Unlike Sunday Night Baseball, the game is non-exclusive, meaning it will co-exist with the teams' local carriers. However, Monday Night Baseball will be allowed to co-exist with local carriers up to three times per club, per year. Beyond that, telecasts will be blacked out in the participating teams' markets (Baseball Tonight is shown in its entirety, beginning at 10:00, with the rest of the nation joining after the game).

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