Yanks and Angels fans have to wait.

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So since the New York Yankees and California Anaheim Los Angeles Angels both took care of business pretty quickly in the American League Divisional Series, the league championship should be starting up Tuesday or Wednesday on Fox at the latest, right?

No. Try Friday.

Come again?

Yes, Yankees and Angels fans now have to wait five days to see their teams square off in what has potential to be a pretty amazing series.

As annoying as this is to baseball fans, from a business standpoint it has to be this way. For starters, the playoffs are scheduled way in advance and consider both the potential length of a series and the chance of bad weather delaying games. Second, the network has already been promoting this week’s lineup of prime-time shows and doesn’t want to yank ‘Glee’ for baseball any sooner than necessary.

Furthermore, hotel and travel plans also don’t happen overnight. Even if Fox could start the American League Championship Series now, the risk is then that the winner could be waiting as long as 10 days for its World Series opponent to be determined. Ideally, Major League Baseball would like both teams to come in with close to if not the same amount of rest before starting the series.

‘All these factors make it difficult to change the schedule,’ says Matt Bourne of Major League Baseball.
Fine, the fan in me accepts all this. But can we please have one day game in the series? Is that asking too much?

-- Joe Flint

PRESSWIRE