Tuesday, October 28, 2008

World Series status report

As the weather in Philadelphia continues to suck, the Phillies and Rays won’t return to the field tonight.  Game 5 is now scheduled to recommence tomorrow night, weather permitting.

There is precedent for multi-day delays during the World Series, if not for mid-game delays during the Series. 

Perhaps the most famous one occurred in 1975.  The justly-praised Game 6 of that Series between Cincinnati’s Big Red Machine and the Lynn-Rice Red Sox, the game in which Carlton Fisk willed his 12th-inning flyball to hit the foul pole for a Series-tying homer, took place a full five days after Game 5.  Following a Thursday game in Cincinnati and a scheduled travel day on Friday, the clubs were rained out at Fenway Park on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.

Another such delay, much shorter than 1975’s, also involved the Red Sox and also involved an extremely famous ballgame.  After the shocking Bill Buckner error game (Game 6 of the 1986 World Series between the Sox and the New York Mets), rain postponed Game 7 from Sunday to Monday.

If the Rays and Phils do play again tomorrow night, it’ll begin just after Barack Obama’s 30 minute television program, on the very same network (FOX).  At least, that’s how it’ll run in the Eastern and Central time zones.  No word yet on how the two programs will be handled in the Mountain, Pacific, Alaska, and Hawaii time zones.