Bob Costas returning to NBC to host `Sunday Night Baseball` pregame show

Bob Costas closed NBC's coverage of Major League Baseball in 2000 when the New York Yankees beat the Oakland Athletics in the AL Championship Series.

When NBC returns to covering baseball this season, Costas will be the first voice welcoming the sport back after the network announced Thursday that the 29-time Sports Emmy winner will host its “Sunday Night Baseball” pregame show.

He will anchor NBC's coverage when the two-time defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers open the season hosting Arizona on Thursday, March 26.

“We're trying to make ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ feel big. There's no bigger name associated with baseball than Bob and also great to have him back in the NBC fold,” NBC Sports President Rick Cordella said to The Associated Press. “Bob was the face of NBC Sports and maybe the network for a period of time. To bring him back as he sort of winds down his career is the right thing to do. And when we got baseball back it made a lot of sense.”

NBC, which celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, carried baseball from 1939-89. It was part of the short-lived Baseball Network with ABC in 1994 and ’95 and then aired playoff games from 1996 through 2000.

“I think a step forward is that baseball was back at one of its natural homes, which is NBC. There’s a lot of baseball history here,” Costas said.

Costas was with NBC for 39 years before leaving in 2019. He hosted 12 Olympics, including 11 as the primetime host, and seven Super Bowls while having a role in 10 NBA Finals and seven World Series.

He has been an emeritus announcer at NBC since 2016, but the return of baseball and the NBA made this a perfect time for a more active role.

“While I’ve been gone from NBC since 2019, we have been in nearly constant contact since shortly after that and just waiting for the right time and the lineup of the right circumstances to come together for me to return. And now those circumstances have perfectly come together,” Costas said during a conference call. “Nothing that I will do will overlap with what others are doing. Others are in the primes of their careers and I’m an icing on the cake guy now, a contributor, a role player, and I look forward to it, especially just because it’s under the NBC umbrella.”

Baseball has always been Costas’ favorite sport. He called games on NBC from 1982-89 and again from 1994-2000. He was one of the announcers for the 1995 World Series and then the main play-by-play voice for the Fall Classic in 1997 and ’99.

He also called games for TBS and MLB Network, but announced after the 2024 American League Division Series between the Kansas City Royals and New York Yankees that he was retiring from play by play.

Costas has been a voice of MLB Network since its start in 2009 and was part of its coverage of Tuesday's Hall of Fame announcement.

In 2018, he received the Hall's Ford C. Frick Award for broadcast excellence.

“There’s no one more associated with baseball who hasn’t played the game than Bob," NBC Sports executive producer Sam Flood said. “Others who have played the game might be more associated, but for a non-player. Bob has impacted baseball for generations and will continue to do so now that he’s partnered back with us.”

Costas has had some role with NBC with its return to NBA coverage this season, narrating some opening teases. The 29-time Sports Emmy winner was either a host or play by play announcer during the network’s first NBA coverage stint from 1990 through 2002.

NBC said Costas will continue to contribute to NBA games this season, with additional details to be announced.

AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

FILE - Bob Costas and Jill Costas arrive on the red carpet at the State Department for the Kennedy Center Honors gala dinner, Dec. 2, 2023, in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — Sometimes, you can always get what you want: On Tuesday, The Rolling Stones confirmed that they will release a new album, titled “Foreign Tongues,” on July 10.

They also released a new single, titled “In The Stars.”

To celebrate, Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood will attend an album announcement event in Brooklyn Tuesday afternoon.

The Stones' last album was 2023's “Hackney Diamonds.” It was their first album of original material in 18 years — since 2005’s “A Bigger Bang.” It was also their first full-length release since the death of drummer Charlie Watts in 2021. He appeared posthumously on two of that album's 12 tracks.

According to press materials for “Foreign Tongues,” it will also include a special appearance from Watts from one of his final recording sessions before his death, as well as contributions from Steve Winwood, Paul McCartney, the Cure’s Robert Smith and the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Chad Smith.

“I love doing these recording sessions in London at Metropolis. It was a very intense few weeks recording ‘Foreign Tongues,’” Mick Jagger said in a statement. “We had 14 great tracks and we went as fast as we could. I like the room there as it’s not too big so you can feel the passion in the room from everyone.”

The Stones also worked closely with Oscar-winning pop producer Andrew Watt (known for his work with Post Malone and Justin Bieber, and the Stones' “Hackney Diamonds,” to name a few).

Speculation surrounding a new Stones album has been going around for weeks. First, posters appeared around London with the band name “The Cockroaches,” a pseudonym the Stones' have used in the past, along with a QR code. The code led to ‘thecockroaches.com’ and a sign-up page. Once a user had signed up, they received a confirmation message from Universal Music — the Stones' label. Representatives did not provide The Associated Press with comment or confirmation at the time.

Eventually it led to a white label, vinyl-only release of the track “Rough and Twisted” using The Cockroaches name — the first true tease of “Foreign Tongues” decipherable only by their most dedicated fans.

Then, in the week leading up to their announcement, billboards with the band's iconic mouth and tongue logo began appearing in major cities around the world with the words “Foreign Tongues” in various languages: “Fremmede Sprog,” “Vreemde Tongen,” “Dayuhang Dila,” “외국어,” and “Langues Étrangères” among them. Around the same time, the Rolling Stones' official website was updated to feature video clips stylized to look like surveillance footage of them in the studio.

On Sunday, the band shared a slide puzzle graphic fans believed to be the album artwork, depicting a cartoonish collage of the members' faces. (They were correct; it was the official album cover.) There was also a short video clip, just 10-seconds long, that appeared to tease a new song.

“The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon” will host the surviving members of the Stones across three nights this month, NBC announced Tuesday.

Jagger will appear on Wednesday's show and Fallon will host Richards on Thursday. Wood will appear on May 13.

No additional details on whether the band will perform together on the show were immediately released.

FILE - Ronnie Wood, from left, Mick Jagger, Steve Jordan, and Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones perform during the "Hackney Diamonds" tour on June 27, 2024, in Chicago. (Photo by Rob Grabowski/Invision/AP, File)