Thanks for nothing, Bud!
Anyone who is a fan of both the New York Yankees and New York Giants, like myself, can't possibly be very happy this morning. Thanks to baseball's moronic scheduling, we have to choose between watching the Yankees and Giants tonight -- as both games start after 8 p.m.
Why, Bud? Oh, I already know the answer. Because the 8:20 start is necessitated by FOX. Never mind the fact that it puts fans of both teams in an awkward position.
Start the game in the afternoon and you get two things. Warmer weather this late in the year that is more conducive to baseball. And, you turn it into a great sports day for Yankees/Giants fans.
But no, we can't have the game during the day because FOX is showing NFL games.
So, what do you do? Flip channels incessantly? Use the picture-in-picture functionality to see both, if your television is equipped with it? DVR both games so you can go back-and-forth and make sure you don't miss any of the key action in either game?
I know I'm not the only one trying to figure out how I am going to do this tonight.
Of course, we know that the commissioner doesn't really care about the fans, or, in truth, the quality of the games at this point. He cares only about the television dollars. That's why we are staring at the probability of two Northeast teams playing a World Series that will stretch into November. An absolutely ridiculous time to be playing baseball -- especially at night -- in this part of the country.
You can't do anything about the rain -- except get the season over with earlier. The scheduled days off annoy not just the fans, but the players and managers, too.
Partly because they each swept their division series, the Yankees and the Angels have played just eight games in 20 days since the end of the regular season. In a session with Los Angeles-area writers on Saturday, Angels Manager Mike Scioscia made his feelings clear.
"Ridiculous," Scioscia said. "I don’t know. Can I say it any clearer than that? We should have never had a day off last Wednesday. We should never have three days off after the season. You shouldn’t even have two days off after the season.
"It just takes an advantage away for a deep team, which everybody feels very strongly is an asset. It takes that advantage away and I think that’s something that Major League Baseball hopefully will consider looking at."
The reason for the elongated schedule is the recent change in the start of the World Series. From 1985 through 2006, the World Series was scheduled to start on a Saturday. Then baseball and the networks concluded that Saturday was a dead night for ratings. They built a few extra days into the schedule, which pushed Game 1 to a Wednesday.
Getting back to tonight, I am curious how other Giants/Yankees fans are going to handle the evening. Let me know.