At 5:28: Astros terrorize television

Starting time, according to the morning paper, of Houston vs. St. Louis, Game 5, was 5:28 p.m.

I announced this to my bride-to-be: “Houston, St. Louis, 5:28.”

“Five twenty-eight what?” she said

“P.M.,” I said.

“Not 5:30?” she said.

I brandished the paper. “Five twenty-eight, is what it says.”

She didn’t respond, telling me loud and clear how silly it was to announce the starting time of a game as 5:28. It’s just the television business at work, reminding us who is boss with a flip reminder to all us great unwashed of how big this game really is. It is not a 5:30 game. It is a 5:28 game.

I have liked the St. Louis Cardinals since Stan Musial was there, but I hope Houston wins and goes to the World Series. The television people are already gnashing their teeth that the idiot Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim put the New York Yankees out of the playoffs and World Series, eliminating all those eyeballs in the nation’s No. 1 television market.

Yet it would be a good test of this Angels marketing experiment of tying themselves to Los Angeles, the No. 2 market, instead of some backwater orange factory like Anaheim. But that good chance at new information got blown to hell by the Chicago White Sox.

The Chicago White Sox! In the World Series! That cost the network probably $100 grand a minute in advertising rates. The only team worth television’s time in Chicago is the Cubbies, who have more fans in most major league towns than the home team. The White Sox? Please. What’s on the movie channels? Turn on “The Daily Show.”

When Albert Pujols hit the home run to send the National League series back to St. Louis, the television people jumped out of their seats. The end of the world – the Houston Astros vs. the Chicago White Sox in the World Series was one out away. The Cards, with at least a shred of national name I.D., lived to breathe another day.

I like games at this level, where the loser goes home, whoever the teams involved might be. That’s how I market this game to my beloved, whose preferences in televised sports are narrow. Tennis, and, if Tiger Woods is playing, golf. But it was Houston-St. Louis, so I didn’t market that hard, which is why we didn’t see the Pujols home run.

It is reasoning like that among the great unwashed which drives the television people crazy. It must have been a dramatic moment of Kirk Gibson quality, but we missed it because if was Houston-St. Louis. Dramatic moments matter to television only when it’s New York vs. Los Angeles.

Of course if New York and Los Angeles were in the World Series, five of the games would start at 5:28 on the West Coast, 8:38 Eastern, and those New York fans would still be watching commercials after midnight. With Houston vs. the White Sox, they can start it any special time they please, 5:28 p.m., or 1:23 a.m., and about the same number of people will watch. They know that, and I love it that they do.