Clubhouse Edition With CC Sabathia Returns For Second Season

By now, you’ve probably heard of “Manningcast” in which Peyton and Eli Manning loosely watched the ESPN Monday Night Football game, joke around guests, accidentally drop F-bombs, and generally became a sensation. What you may not know is that the concept pretty much started on MLB Network with CC Sabathia.

That’s right, the former MLB pitcher for Cleveland, the Brewers, and New York Yankees got the shot to provide his own brand of commentary on MLB Network games months before the Manningcast (Clubhouse Edition launched in April of 2021 while Manningcast launched in mid-September of that same year).

As a co-developer of the concept, Sabathia said before the launch of Clubhouse Edition last year, “Whenever I watch games with my friends and former teammates, I always say that it would be cool if the cameras were rolling and people could listen to our different conversations.”

Fans will get a chance to see the return of Clubhouse Edition with Sabathia for a second season beginning with the New York Mets at San Diego Padres this Monday, June 6 at 9:30 p.m. ET. Joining Sabathia will be MLB Network’s Stephen Nelson, former Padres first baseman Yonder Alonso, and former Mets outfielder Cliff Floyd.

“This groundbreaking series was a tremendous success last year,” said Marc Caiafa, MLB Network Senior Vice President of Production. “Collaborating with CC helped us bring a new dimension to the way we broadcast games and throughout baseball. As we look ahead, we’re excited to bring the series back and make it even more enjoyable for baseball fans.”

As to what to expect, the loose format has generated some exceptional content if last year is an example. Here’s Hall of Famer and MLB Network analyst Pedro Martinez talking about changing his grip mid-delivery to throw batters off.

There were plenty of others.

How about Martinez and Sabathia correctly predicting a Max Scherzer slider for a strikeout during a Los Angeles Dodgers at Padres telecast? Or Sabathia explaining how to attack the potent Dodgers lineup, and Sabathia reliving hitting a home run off Chan Ho Park at Dodger Stadium in 2015?

No matter who came first (Clubhouse Edition before Manningcast), what MLB Network will strive to do in its second year is try and reach the popularity of ESPN’s simulcast with the Manning brothers. That seems impossible (ESPN has broader carriage and the NFL is vastly more popular than Major League Baseball). But maybe that’s not the ultimate goal for MLB Network. The goal will simply to be bring fresh content and conversation which the game needs.