Greed’s need leaves World Series out in the cold

May 20, 2007 01:30 am

— Reggie Jackson, the player dubbed “Mr. October” for his World Series performances, was born a generation too early.
He’s missing a chance to become “Mr. November” — as in the month the Series potentially could conclude this year.
Keeping an eye on the bottom line is one thing; slavish surrender to a TV rating point or two is quite another. And on this note, baseball has bent over and assumed the position.
This year, the first World Series game will commence on Wednesday, Oct. 24, instead of the previous Saturday, per tradition.
The Wednesday start is straight out of some AC Nielsen company spreadsheet.
Saturday is TV’s least-watched night. Plus, baseball would be in competition with televised college football, which has the audacity to take place during, um, football season.
What’s more, the Series also will have an extra day this year, so as to avoid playing on Friday, which is — you guessed it — TV’s second least-watched night.
And if the Fal ..., er, Winter Classic should go seven games, the finale would be played Nov. 1.
Think Boston, Detroit, Chicago, et al on Nov. 1.
Players in stocking caps, Bud Selig in a box seat pretending to be enjoying himself, fans in various states of hypothermia.
For what?
All pro sports go on too long, but baseball is the one that stands the greatest chance of having performances adversely affected by weather.
Some perspective on how the baseball season has been stretched like Pinocchio’s nose: In 1965 at Metropolitan Stadium in Bloomington, the Twins lost Game 7 of the Series to the Dodgers. Date: Oct 14.
Angels manager Mike Scoscia has it right. He’s loathe to see the level of play affected by the weather, and proposes that the regular-season schedule be condensed seven to 10 days, perhaps by mixing in some doubleheaders.
(That gasp you just heard was the collective coronary attacks of baseball execs who’d rather lop their limbs than cut back on dates).
Baseball’s new pact with Fox TV is a wrongheaded way to deal with a perceived problem — the Series’ TV ratings, which were at all-time low ebbs the past two years.
But in this over-wired era of cable cabals and other electronic entertainment stimuli, comparing ratings past and present is to compare apples to Apples.
Which gets us back to the greedheads’ need to always grovel for a nickel more, never mind that baseball is doing just fine in the greenbacks department.
Baseball fever. Catch it — in November, along with pneumonia.

Brian Ojanpa is a Free Press staff writer. Call him at 344-6316 or e-mail bojanpa@ mankatofreepress.com.

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