October baseball popular again

After years of declining television ratings, Major League Baseball is hot again.
Despite scheduling their best games so late that they usually don't end before midnight in the East, baseball officials again know what it feels like to gloat.
Thanks to two fabulous, dramatic League Championship Series, fans once again are passionate about October baseball. The proof can be found in how the top networks opposing FOX are reacting.
When baseball first moved its playoff and World Series games to prime time three decades ago, ratings were fantastic as working people could finally watch the games instead of sneaking radios to work and school.
Advancement
Over time and with the proliferation of cable TV, baseball interest peaked in the early '90s. Four decades ago, national telecasts occurred once a week. Today, there's a national game available to cable subscribers four-to-five days a week during the six-month season.
The strike of 1994 that canceled the World Series added fuel to the declining interest fire. In northeast Ohio, few noticed because the Cleveland Indians became contenders at the same time.
Three years ago when the New York Yankees played the New York Mets in the World Series, interest in the metropolitan New York area was sky high. But west of Allentown, Pa.; north of Hartford, Conn., and south of Trenton, N.J., the nation yawned.
Interest picked up in 2001 when the Yankees lost to the Arizona Diamondbacks in seven exciting games. The fact that three games were played about 12 miles from Ground Zero increased the tension and helped a mourning nation momentarily forget some of its pain.
But last year, the California series (San Francisco Giants vs. Anaheim Angels) saw the return of mediocre ratings.
It's no wonder that in recent Octobers, NBC and CBS have shown first-run programming against what used to be unbeatable playoff baseball games.
Strategy change
That's what made last week's strategy change so fascinating. When the Boston Red Sox forced last Thursday's ALCS Game 7 that featured Pedro Martinez pitching against Roger Clemens, the opposing networks blinked. Instead of showing first-run episodes of "Friends," "E.R." and the usual lineup in between, NBC showed reruns.
Except for a first-run episode of "Survivor," CBS followed suit with its top-rated dramas "CSI" and "Without a Trace."
What made the move so interesting is that CBS and NBC made changes on the most lucrative night of the week. Because most movies open on Fridays, ads for the new releases are everywhere on the Thursday dial. When reruns replace new episodes, ad rebates surely follow.
Until the late '90s, the networks usually ran reruns opposite the World Series. But in recent seasons, CBS and NBC have added to FOX's baseball ratings woes by running new episodes of their most popular shows.
This week's schedule is loaded with new episodes, but will they air? Because the Yankees are playing the unheralded Florida Marlins (who barely have a loyal following in Miami), the networks may stay the course.
Addictive
For those of us fortunate enough to be able to arrange our schedules to allow for late-night viewing, these games have become downright addictive.
Now if we could just get FOX to show some different commercials between innings. Even though "The Simpsons" Halloween episode doesn't air until Nov. 2, I feel like I've already seen most of the funny parts.
And even though it takes 24 hours to see a season of "24," baseball fans feel like they're already at least two hours into the new season thanks to its heavy promotion.
XTom Williams is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at williams@vindy.com.