Take a minute to stop reading and break the news to your dad that tonight he’s not going to be able to watch Kyle Gibson vs. Josiah Gray with John Kruk and T-Mac. You might just want to kill two birds with one stone and let him know the Phillies ratings on Apple TV are so good that they added a fourth game in the middle of a playoff race:

The good news for your pops is the game tonight is free, he just has to give his information to another tech company he definitely trusts. Unless he has an Android of course.

Via Rob Tornoe at the Inky:

Friday night’s game is free to watch, but you need to set up an Apple TV+ account and either download the app or watch on their website (The Apple TV+ app isn’t available on Android phones).

He’s definitely going to wonder why he has to do this again when he already had to sign up for the game on Father’s Day. At that point you’ll need to tell him that was Peacock and this is Apple. Two totally different things. This is when he’ll get irrationally angry and yell at your mom or the dog over something they did more than a week ago. At this moment, it’s important to calm him down by talking about the 1980 Phillies and how it’ll be cool to see them come back to the stadium this weekend. He’ll start to settle down thinking about Tug McGraw jumping off the mound for the final out. He’s then going to ask you how many more games are not going to be on NBC Sports Philly, so I made him a f̶o̶o̶d̶ streaming pyramid you can send him for the rest of the season:

Here is where you two can devise a plan about how you’ll attack each game going forward. The August 5th to August 12th window is very important. Two Apple TV games in a seven day stretch is going to be tough for the old man. He’s going to want to carb load on Kruk and T-Mac as much as he can in between those days. That way if he has to miss the game against the Mets on the 12th he’ll already have a belly full of figurative baseball pasta to hold him over until the next day. We’ve got a game on August 20th on FOX he’s going to hate once John Smoltz’s dumb face pops onto the stream. He’ll be immediately pissed off as he remembers his 30s were ruined by those 90s and early-2000s Phillies teams. That game is ruined. Nothing you can do about it. It’s important he takes August 21st to August 31st very seriously. We have a chance to go 10-0 as they take on the Pirates, Reds, and DBacks. He’s going to be riding high only to come falling back to Earth when he hears the game on September 2nd is on Apple TV again. If we can just get him over that hill we’re full steam ahead for the rest of the season.

Godspeed.