BASEBALL / DAILY REPORT : NATIONAL LEAGUE PLAYOFFS : TV Dictates Game Time for Game 6 Wednesday

The Atlanta Braves and Philadelphia Phillies will be glued to TV tonight, watching Game 6 of the American League playoff.

How else will they know the starting time of their own Game 6 in Philadelphia Wednesday night?

“I don’t think this is a good thing for baseball,” Atlanta Manager Bobby Cox said of the CBS-dictated scheduling that has left the National League playoff without a schedule.

“This is what happens when you sell your soul,” a league official said. “The tail keeps wagging the dog.”

The situation: If the American League playoff ends tonight, Wednesday’s Game 6 of the NL playoff will begin at 5:12 p.m. PDT. If the AL playoff goes to a Game 7 on Wednesday night, the NL will play at noon PDT.

The National League had been advising reporters on its daily information sheets that if the American playoff wasn’t resolved by Sunday, the National would play at noon on Wednesday. The National League now claims that was a mistake, that the starting time of Game 6 always hinged on weather the American series went to a Game 7.

National League President Bill White, choosing his words carefully, said the issue was discussed for two months.

“I favored the first option (putting a Sunday deadline on the starting time) and did not favor the second (leaving it up in the air until after the AL plays tonight),” he said.

“That’s all I want to say.”

CBS, in the final two weeks of its four-year contract, has used four different starting times in the two playoffs: 5:12, 5:39, 1 and noon PDT. The National League teams had to be back at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium before noon EDT Monday, even though Game 4 had not ended until 12:15 a.m. EDT.