Courtesy Boston Globe

(April 24, 2009) You've read him, you've heard him, you've seen him. And beginning May 2, there will be even more Michael Felger to love - or hate. The former Boston Herald sportswriter and ESPN Radio personality will host a pair of new programs for Comcast SportsNet - "The Baseball Show" and "Sports Sunday."

"The Baseball Show" will air Saturdays from 9 a.m. to noon. Felger will be joined by CSN baseball analyst Lou Merloni and Herald sportswriters Sean McAdam and Steve Buckley. The show will originate from CSN's studios in Burlington and will be simulcast on WEEI. It can also be accessed through CSNNE.com and WEEI.com.

"Sports Sunday" will air at 10 p.m. The hourlong program promises to be a freewheeling discussion of what happened in the sports world throughout the weekend, taking advantage of Felger's often controversial opinions, which tend to be pithy and outrageous.

Felger, who also hosts CSN's "Sports Tonight" and writes twice a week for WEEI.com as well as filling in on WEEI, said he knows he's everywhere but he didn't want to pass up the opportunity the new ventures offered.

"I'm totally sick of myself," he said. "Not as sick as my wife [Channel 25 anchor Sara Underwood]. I don't know if everybody really watches everything and listens to everything and reads everything on the Internet. Do people do all three? Some people do all of it. We pay attention to everything - we in the media - but I think most people have their one [station] they watch or listen to."

Felger said "Sports Sunday" offers an earlier alternative to "Sports Final" on Channel 4, formerly the gold standard, and Channel 7's "Sports Extra."

" 'The Baseball Show' is sort of replicating what WEEI has done for the last several years with their weekend morning baseball show," said Felger. "We're going to take callers, it's going to be simulcast, and it's just baseball. 'Sports Sunday' is our version of what Channel 4 and Channel 7 have been doing, but we're longer and, I think, better. For whatever reason, they've just sort of lost their steam and I don't know if that's the night or the fact there are so many other shows during the week.

"Maybe those shows have lost something themselves, I don't know. I think if you hit it hard, people are going to tune in because that's the first chance they have to really recap the weekend and set [the scene] for the week ahead. It's a great night to do the show. I'm ecstatic that we're doing it."

Cross-pollination in sports media is very common these days as the print medium transitions into a new incarnation that utilizes online audio and video as well as the written word to illustrate sports stories. Globe sports columnist Bob Ryan was one of the first to move smoothly from print to television and back again.

For Felger, it's a chance to make his name even more well known in one of the largest and most successful sports markets in the country.

"I can see why people would think the overexposure is bad," he said. "I have a hard time saying no to things. I like to work. I like to work hard, so when someone comes to you with an opportunity, it's not in my nature to say, 'No, I'm just going to take it easy.' "

Whether you admire or loathe his style, Felger said he's not being theatrical when he voices his points of view. He believes everything he says, even when he is wrong. Nine years ago as the Bruins beat writer for the Herald, he called owner Jeremy Jacobs "a thief" in print and the paper was threatened with a defamation suit and printed an apology. But Felger's style has also earned him a following.

"I'm wrong plenty," he said. "You can go back and say, 'Well, that opinion was wrong,' or 'That opinion was over the top or foolish,' after the fact, but at the time I would never say anything I didn't believe, ever."

He acknowledges he can be a polarizing force no matter what job he is doing but he said it goes with the territory.

"I'm the guy that some people like to hate," he said. "I would hate to think it's everybody. I try to have strong opinions, and so when you have strong opinions, a lot of people like it and a lot of people don't like it. In those [message board] forums, it's largely negative, but that's OK. It's just part of it.

"I don't really take it as a bad thing."