Jason Benetti, Bob Costas, Roger Clemens, Anthony Rizzo, Rob Hyland
June 23, 2026
THE MODERATOR: Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome to our NBC Sports conference call today to discuss this weekend’s Yankees-Red Sox game on Sunday Night Baseball, and NBC Sports Star-Spangled Sunday presentation of all 15 Major League Baseball games on Sunday, July 5th, the first for any media company.
Joining us on today’s call is the host of NBC Sunday Night Baseball, Bob Costas, who called the last Yankees-Red Sox game on NBC in September 1995 alongside Bob Uecker. The play-by-play voice of Sunday Night Baseball, Jason Benetti, who this Sunday calls his first Yankees-Red Sox regular season game. He did also call the ESPN Statcast of the 2021 Yankees-Red Sox Wild Card game.
Next, we have Roger Clemens, the seven-time Cy Young Award winner, who will join Jason in the booth at Fenway Park this Sunday night. Roger has started 49 games in the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry, 32 for the Red Sox, 17 for the Yankees. For those interested, he had a 22-16 win-loss record in those games with 300 strikeouts and 324.1 innings pitched.
Next, we have Chicago Cubs World Series hero Anthony Rizzo, who joins Bob on Sunday night’s pregame show and then Jason and Roger in-game with Inside the Pitch commentary from a batter’s perspective. Anthony drove in 18 runs in 29 regular-season games for the Yankees against the Red Sox and also hit a home run in that 2021 Wild Card matchup that Jason called.
Finally, we have NBC Sports’ senior vice president of production and coordinating producer, Rob Hyland, who doesn’t have any Yankees-Red Sox ties, but his great-grandfather was the doctor for the 1930s St. Louis Cardinals Gashouse Gang teams. Each will make an opening comment, and then we’ll take your questions. We’ll turn it over to Rob Hyland.
ROB HYLAND: Thanks, Dan. I didn’t know you were going down the medical path. Best decision I ever made was not going into medicine. I have the greatest job in the world. I’m so excited to be able to cover Yankees-Red Sox this Sunday, and a week from Sunday to cover our Star-Spangled Sunday.
No sport is associated more with the 4th of July holiday than baseball. We get the chance and the privilege to cover all 15 games between NBC and Peacock. We’ve got a great plan in place, which I’ll touch upon in a bit, but I want to turn it over to Bob Costas for his comments.
BOB COSTAS: Thanks, Rob. You know, when you talk about baseball, the venue is more important than in most sports. Other sports have a few iconic venues, but no sport has as many where the venue resonates like it does in baseball. Fenway Park is one of those places. The Yankees and Red Sox obviously have tremendous history, so we can lean into the history of that in the pregame show and perhaps throughout the game, and the venue itself becomes part of the story.
Anthony Rizzo and I have only done a handful of games so far in the pregame, but we’ve hit it off well, and there seems to be a good chemistry between us. So, we’ll revisit that this coming Sunday night.
It’s been a long time since I crossed paths with Roger Clemens, but he and I were always pretty good friends. If you’ve been around as long as I have, it’s almost inevitable that you have some history with somebody who is part of baseball history. And as Roger may recall, Joe Morgan and I called one of the greatest games of his career -- a complete-game one-hitter with 15 strikeouts in the ALCS in 2000 in Seattle against the Mariners for the Yankees.
JASON BENETTI: Bob, to your point about the venue, the 2021 Wild Card game between these two, win or go home, is as loud as I’ve heard a stadium. And leaving there and talking to people from Boston who were at that game, a number of them said that they had not heard Fenway that loud other than maybe in a World Series.
It was one of those special moments where you have a rivalry come together with societal situations as well, where for 2020, COVID didn’t allow anybody to be in the stadium for the most part for anything other than the postseason.
So, to have the Yankees-Red Sox when we all came out of that COVID-forced cocoon happen in front of us was a marvel. I mean, it was this moment for humanity where two sides that hate each other but know how much they can push each other as well stood out.
I have to say, and I apologize to Anthony, who is somewhere on mute down in Florida probably, his home run was not the most memorable moment of that game. When Giancarlo Stanton hit that ball off the Green Monster and the Red Sox put together a perfect relay to cut down Aaron Judge, I believe it was at home, I don’t know that I’ve heard a stadium louder than that ever doing a game.
So, I’m thrilled to be back at Fenway. I’m thrilled to be back there for Yankees-Red Sox, and I’m thrilled to introduce Roger Clemens and have him in the booth with us with his specific brand of insight on pitching.
ROGER CLEMENS: It’s great to hear everybody’s familiar voice. Like everybody else, I’m looking forward to this. I’ve obviously done some radio and TV throughout my retirement. I love doing it. I love trying to bring some insight, depending on what pitcher is on the mound and how they’re breaking a hitter down. It will be fun to talk to Anthony about it.
Bob, you are correct, my boys, my four boys, my youngest one is still playing for the Minnesota Twins, but my four boys say out of all the games, the 20-strikeout games and so on and so forth, the Seattle game was probably the most dominant game that I had, and I had all three pitches working.
So, a lot of fun. Can’t wait to get back to my old stomping ground, Fenway Park, and the history there, as you guys know. When I got drafted by the Red Sox, my mom wrote a poem about Fenway Park and what I was walking into. To have the opportunity to hang around the likes of Ted Williams and (Carl Yastrzemski), to know that Babe Ruth, who ran around that same dirt, and the great Cy Young, who I was fortunate enough to win his award seven times, are part of the history there.
Then having the opportunity to go to the Yankees and the history there. Old Yankee Stadium, of course, as you guys know, we had ghosts running around that place, there were so many come-from-behind wins. Again, playing with the great players and seeing the great players -- the past great players -- that would come to Spring Training. You just have the opportunity to visit with them. It was obviously really cool.
Just looking forward to it. We’re going to have fun, and we’ll do it up, and hopefully we’ll tee up some questions, and some fun things will happen in the game.
I talked about it many times that when I was with the Red Sox, mid to late ‘80s, the Yankees, it’s always a rivalry, but they weren’t very good. They had Donnie Ballgame (Don Mattingly) and a few others. They weren’t very competitive with the Red Sox. Our team that we were knocking heads with were the Toronto Blue Jays, late ‘80s and early ‘90s. Of course, they won a couple of World Series back-to-back there.
Once I went to the Yankees, (George) Steinbrenner came to Houston calling again to point and finally looked me right in the face and said, “Do you want to be a damn Yankee or don’t you? I’ve been trying to get you for three years.”
I ended up getting with the Yankees. The Red Sox changed ownership. The competitiveness of the games got everybody getting after it again.
I don’t think it was as nasty as in the ‘70s, mid ‘70s, ’75, when guys were sliding into second really trying to knock you off second base into the Green Monster. That’s how hard they played back then.
We had some good, tough games. So, looking forward to it.
ANTHONY RIZZO: Very humbled to be part of this group, especially working alongside Bob Costas. Jason Benetti has been amazing on the call and including me on the broadcast on Inside the Pitch. We’ve had some good shows already.
Last week, we worked with John Kruk and John Franco, just two great personalities. This weekend, getting to work with Roger Clemens and Will Middlebrooks and call the game with Jason, it’s going to be amazing.
It’s been a lot of fun. Getting drafted by the Red Sox was something I’ll always cherish, especially with my family. They helped me through my own personal journey of cancer and helped me through that whole process. The development I learned through the Minor Leagues, throughout the Red Sox, are things I carried through my entire career. Then getting to play for the Yankees and then play Red Sox-Yankees was always a dream come true.
Growing up, you always saw the Yankees-Red Sox on primetime. You saw the five-and-a-half-hour games, but as a kid, I was engaged for all five and a half hour and I loved every second of it.
Now, to be on the other side a couple of years removed from the game and getting to call it as a fan, as an insider, is something I’ll cherish, especially with this group.
Playing in that Wild Card game, I remember there was a point where I looked over at Aaron Judge. I think we were losing. Schwarber hit the home run off Gerrit Cole, and we were losing. But we were in the dugout, and I looked at him, and I go, “This is awesome.” He says, “We’re losing.” I go, “Dude, we’re going to win.” Obviously, we did not.
I go, “But just cherish this moment. This is Red Sox-Yankees in the playoffs.”
It’s going to be very special to call that. We were there a couple of weeks ago with the Tartan Army, and it was loud, but I expect it to be louder with the Red Sox-Yankees.
Then on July 5th, the Star-Spangled Sunday is going to be amazing. Just all 15 games [on NBC and Peacock]. It’s going to be something special. Looking forward to that as well.
Q: Anthony, how have you taken to broadcasting? What have been some of the challenges and successes you’ve found so far? If Bob and Jason wouldn’t mind commenting on -- or evaluating his performance so far as a newbie on the scene, I would appreciate that.
ANTHONY RIZZO: For me, it was awesome. NBC reached out pretty early on and said they had a lot of interest, and I definitely had interest in getting into this. I had dinner with Sam Flood and Bruce Cornblatt. We hit it off.
Throughout this whole time, I’m just learning how to get better, how to announce better, how to be more energetic, and be myself at the same time. So, it’s really unique being so fresh removed and knowing a lot of guys in the clubhouses and getting their intel and just being up to speed with today’s game. It’s such a different game than even when I was in the Big Leagues, let alone Roger when he played.
I do have a little bit of intel of what these guys may be thinking on a daily basis in today’s game. I get coaching weekly from Bruce Cornblatt, who has helped me tremendously just grow in this spot. Jason has been amazing. It’s been awesome working with Bob, seeing his preparation. There’s been a few games where we had to audible quickly on the fly on the pregame show. That’s what live television is, and it’s been a lot of fun.
BOB COSTAS: To follow up on that, Anthony is as self-critical as anybody who wants to be good at what they do is, but he starts out at a pretty high level. He’s comfortable. He’s conversive with what’s going on with the game.
The point that he made is so important. When you are freshly removed from the playing field, and you are talking about guys who you played with or against, then those insights tend to be deeper. Then the real challenge becomes, and the greats meet that challenge, the Tim McCarvers and people like that, Tony Kubek, who I worked with back in the day. Once that familiarity, that direct familiarity, fades, then you’ve got to do even more preparation to stay current, more with the scouts, more with the coaches and the managers, and in the clubhouses, which I’m sure that Anthony will do.
But I think he starts out at a higher level than he gives himself credit for, and it’s easy to work with somebody who is comfortable. When you can sense when the person you are working with is uncomfortable, and you have to kind of coax them along, I feel like I can toss almost anything Anthony’s way, and he is going to field it as smoothly as a four-time Gold Glover will.
JASON BENETTI: I totally agree with what Bob said about Anthony there. I would add that he’s fearless. Anthony has a sense of humor that he trusts. He has a sense of analysis that he trusts.
Anthony and I are not looking at each other. He’s downstairs. I’m upstairs. The analysts are upstairs. Anthony is downstairs, and he maybe has talked over two sentences in six games doing this job. That is other-worldly in being that smooth while also being fearless.
He’ll get in with great analysis. He did a breakdown of Jose Alvarado last week and just how erratic sometimes he can be, the left-hander for the Phillies, and what he would be thinking in the batter’s box was perfect for what Inside the Pitch is meant to be and the prism that you can look through.
But he was fearless about being snarky with John Kruk and John Franco, and he’s got an understanding of people that is well beyond his years. You know, I think part of it comes from his journey, he was talking about earlier, but part of it comes from the fact that Anthony is just genuinely a really good teammate, and that is enormous in this enterprise.
Q: Production question for Rob. I was curious, are you guys adding additional, you know, resources? Is this going to be a bigger show for the Red Sox-Yankees series coming up this weekend? Anything in particular that you are adding to give it that kind of Sunday night tent pole type feel?
ROB HYLAND: Yeah, you know, it’s consistent with our Sunday Night Baseball product. It is tiered, but this is the highest of the Sunday Night Baseball tier in terms of equipment.
This is what we consider an A or an A-plus level game. So, we will have an umpire cam and we’ll have multiple wireless RF cameras. We will obviously have a live drone. In terms of levels, this is as high as it gets for us on a Sunday Night Baseball game.
Q: For Star-Spangled Sunday the following weekend, from a production perspective, are you guys going to have a show that takes people through the day? A home base? And I assume you guys will be taking regional feeds from all those games and stuff. But how are you trying to create a product from end-to-end for that Star-Spangled Sunday broadcast?
ROB HYLAND: So, NBC is going to handle two games on that day, the Mets-Braves game, as well as the Padres-Dodgers game. There are ten games that are going to be produced by local productions, and the other three are going to be simulcast on that local market, as well as Peacock.
Every game, all 15, will be on Peacock, and Peacock will sort of serve as the central hub. There will be multiple game viewing experiences, you know, four game tiles that you can watch on Peacock.
There is no home base studio show on the day, but there will be consistency throughout all these presentations in terms of the graphics look. We’ll pay tribute to Star-Spangled Sunday. The score bar, the upper left score bar that you see in our baseball coverage, will be consistent on 14 of the 15 games. I think the NESN game featuring the Red Sox and Angels will use their own bar, but the theme music will be consistent. There will be a lot of carry-over on this day as you are flipping from game to game.
Q: For Roger, I was just wondering, how did this opportunity present itself? Why did you want to do this this weekend?
ROGER CLEMENS: Yeah, well, I’ve done some in the past, and I think some of the guys have heard it. Sandy Montag called, and we had a little talk and said that they enjoyed some of the stuff I had done in Houston, New York, and Boston, and it just came about. The guys were asking about doing something for NBC.
Of course, I looked into it, and once I knew that I had some wonderful professionals, this is what they do for a living, in Bob Costas and Jason, I was fired up. So, I’m looking forward to doing it.
Again, it’s Yankees-Red Sox. Doesn’t get any better than that. Then possibly another one down the road that we’re looking at. So, just looking forward to doing it.
Anthony is going to be downstairs. I’m a little jealous. I love the downstairs look where you can really pick off some stuff when you are down there, so I’m looking forward to hearing what he has to say.
Just hope that some really cool stuff happens in the game that we can bring light to the viewers. It’s just stuff that we like to talk about. I am still in touch with a ton of my catchers over the years, whether it be a milestone, my 300-game win milestone, or a 20-strikeout game, where a couple of weeks ago in Boston they did a bobblehead day.
I get to visit with a bunch of the catchers. Different pitchers will come up and ask me questions about the split-finger because they’re having trouble with their change-up.
To have the opportunity to be able to broadcast that, there might be a 12-, 13-, 14-, 15-year-old kid that we can bring some things to light, or have them watching what a pitcher does on the mound that’s really good at what he does.
You know, that’s how you learn. I mean, that’s how I learned way back when. We didn’t have all the videos. I had 8-by-10 still photos of Nolan Ryan and Tom Seaver, who I still consider to be the ultimate power pitchers. So, all those are exciting for me.
Again, as I said, we’re going to be working with two big-time professionals that know what they’re doing, and I love listening to them. They’ll bring some -- I wouldn’t say just tee us up on certain questions, but there are going to be some things that happen during the game that we can expand on when we need to.
Q: Just a quick follow-up, just wondering what your thoughts are on the state of Major League Baseball and how the game is trending?
ROGER CLEMENS: I mean, I love the game of baseball. I love some of the changes. I wish our starters would go a little deeper in the game. You’re seeing these guys throw 100 pitches in four innings. We talked about it earlier; they used to have a stat for a quality start. I think back when I was active, it was seven innings and two runs or less. It might be four innings and six runs now. I don’t even know if they have the stat.
So, I’d like to see these guys go a little bit further, deeper in the game, but it just seems like they’re just extremely stressful innings on these guys and their arms that you really have to be religious with the work you do in between starts to try and keep your health out there. Especially once we start getting into August and September, a team that’s going to be in the playoffs.
Bob and Jason might know this better than I. Something I might need to look at is that I think the last four or five World Series Champion teams, on a 26-man roster, I think they’ve used close to 50, 55 players to get to the promised land. I know most of them are pitchers. When I have an opportunity to visit with the guys in Spring Training, the Triple-A guys, the guys that get sent out of Major League camp, and I tell them, “Dude, you’re going to factor into this team winning a World Series or not winning a World Series. You have got to be ready, even though you’re going to Triple-A. You’re going to be up there getting Major League hitters out. So, pay attention to detail.”
Q: This is a question for Anthony. After coming up through the Red Sox organization, do you ever regret not being able to play for them in the Big Leagues? Did anything ever come close to that maybe happening for you?
ANTHONY RIZZO: You know, I wanted to play for them, obviously, getting drafted there. When we were there, I remember Mike Hazen, he was our farm director at the time, and I’m still terrified of him to this day because he was just terrifying with the Boston accent. He would always have a nice chew in. I never got a chance to be in Big League camp there, but all the Minor League camps. I was in three of them. Every Spring Training, he is like, “Someone from this group is going to help this Big-League team win.” Sure enough, one year it was Darnell McDonald who got called up from the Minor Leagues, and Daniel Nava. I’m sure every Red Sox fan remembers that story.
So, it was really cool. You felt part of something in the Minor Leagues there with the Red Sox.
Throughout my career, I remember in 2011 when I got called up, the circle on the schedule with the Padres was the Red Sox series. That was my goal, to play in that series. Playing at Fenway as a visitor for the first time was awesome.
Then, throughout the years, Fenway was always my favorite visiting ballpark to visit. Then, in 2021, when I was a free agent, I was talking to Raquel Ferreira, who is still with the Red Sox. I believe she’s an Assistant GM now. I was, like, “Hey, you guys need to sign me.” I loved my time in New York. Obviously I still love the ties in Boston. I had a lot of close friends there.
I was very happy to obviously sign back with the Yankees and go on to play in the World Series with them, but yeah, I always was a big fan of Boston. Do I regret not playing there? No. I loved playing there as a visitor. But, yeah, that’s my story with it.
BOB COSTAS: Let me jump in here. When we talk about Fenway Park and about the Red Sox and Anthony played with the Cubs, in 2003, we were this close to a World Series at Fenway and in Chicago. The ALCS slipped away from the Red Sox against the Yankees. They had a lead, as everyone knows, in the seventh game. The Cubs were ahead 3-1 against the Marlins.
The World Series wound up being Yankees-Marlins. Hard to imagine that a World Series featuring the Yankees would be the second-best in terms of national appeal. But can you imagine a World Series at Fenway and Wrigley Field with all the history, and at that point, both of them are still trying to break a curse. One curse would have had to have ended. It did end a year later for the Red Sox, and then it ended, like, 13 years later for the Cubs.
But think about that, back to my original point about the venue mattering. A World Series at Wrigley, at Fenway, that would be one for the ages.
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