ABC, NBC Want Their Turn at Bat in Baseball : Commentary: Each network can make a case that it deserves rights to this year’s World Series, but will the fans tune in to the postseason? Or will they have post-traumatic strike syndrome?

Call it the X factor in the new fall TV season.

With the Big Four networks’ 1995-96 schedules set for announcement starting late this week or next, it’s a factor that remains a mystery.

No, it has nothing to do with the latest adventures of “Roseanne” or whether CBS can fool the skeptics and be revived.

None of that.

The factor is baseball.

Specifically, the World Series--a perennial TV blockbuster that got shut out last year by the sport’s historic strike.

You remember baseball. Nine guys. Hot dogs. Peanuts. People used to love it.

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Actually, there are several mysteries about the World Series this season and its impact on the two networks--ABC and NBC--that are partners with baseball in presenting it.

Baseball’s big event comes in October--right at the beginning of the TV season, when networks are trying to get off to strong starts in the ratings.

The World Series invariably helps, even though it preempts regular weekly shows. It’s also a great showcase for promoting the series on the network that carries it.

But this is 1995.

The season has already started late. There’s a bitter aftertaste by many fans over the strike. Will they--the viewers--care as much about the World Series as they did before? Or will time be the great healer?

Oh yes, even though the season has begun--with major leaguers instead of replacement players--there’s still no new basic agreement in the strike.

Asked if he expects a World Series this October, Donald Fehr, head of the players’ union, says: “Yes.”

But then there’s the little matter of how the postseason baseball competition--the new divisional playoffs followed by the league championships and finally the World Series--will be presented on TV. . . .

And how it will impact on the fierce competition for first place in the ratings between top-ranked ABC and onrushing NBC.

Strike or not, the World Series is still regarded as a hot property--so long as it doesn’t wind up with second-string replacement players. In fact, before the strike began last year, ABC was regarded as a shoo-in for first place in the 1994-95 ratings not only because of its strong schedule but also for its good fortune in having three huge special events--the Academy Awards, the Super Bowl and the World Series.

Which means both ABC and NBC would like the big baseball event this fall as they go for the brass ring.

But here’s the rub: The strike wiped out ABC’s crack at the World Series last October; now it’s NBC’s turn this fall, but sources say ABC thinks it’s entitled to the upcoming event because it got aced out in 1994.

“ABC has been in discussions with major league baseball to try and obtain the World Series for this October,” according to Alan Sternfeld, ABC’s senior vice president of program planning and scheduling.

Speaking of the championship competition that leads up to the Series, Sternfeld says: “The league playoffs clearly don’t have the cachet and impact of the World Series.”

That has been borne out by past ratings, where the league finals invariably fall short of the Series and often cost a network a headache in its attempt to break fast and impressively into a new season.

Both networks say the presidents of their sports divisions, Dennis Swanson of ABC and Dick Ebersol of NBC, will work out just how the playoffs will be presented to viewers.

There has even been talk that the World Series--and other postseason baseball playoffs--might be divvied up so that both networks get a more equal crack at the competition.

Under a partnership that was set up in 1993 among NBC, ABC and major league baseball, a rotation was planned. This fall, NBC has been scheduled to present the divisional playoffs and the World Series, with ABC getting the league championships.

But viewers of regular primetime network programs could well have their patience tested in October if all the tiers of the expanded playoffs go the limit.

One baseball source notes that the combined divisional, league and World Series rounds could go as many as 19 days, which may not be likely but could make TV programmers wonder just how much they want to break up the start of future seasons.

NBC, for instance, might like the idea of airing the World Series, but would it savor the chance of having to preempt such hits as “ER” or “Frasier”--or others--for part of the month as it sets its sight on unseating ABC?

The same goes for ABC with “Home Improvement,” “Grace Under Fire,” “NYPD Blue” and its other hits as it tries to ward off NBC.

There are times--as with last year’s dramatic CBS Winter Olympics from Norway--when a network is happy to run with a sizable sports package. But the idea of splitting up the ever-lengthening baseball playoffs more evenly may appeal to many.

CBS, you may recall, lost a bundle--but actually rebounded in the ratings--during its recent four-year exclusive airing of baseball, for which it paid a brutal $1.06 billion in fees for rights to the games.

That widely criticized expenditure helped lead to the new NBC-ABC/major league partnership called The Baseball Network, a planned six-year agreement with no rights fee and baseball assuming marketing and sales responsibility and getting more than 80% of the profits.

The major mystery remains, however: Will the magic of the sport itself overcome the stench of the long, long shutdown that pitted millionaire players against millionaire owners? Will viewers flock to their TV sets so soon again for a World Series?

“It’s still a premiere sports property,” says one network source. “Who wouldn’t want to broadcast it?”

Maybe. A lot of angry people say the greed has ruined their appetite for caring anymore about major league baseball.

The future of The Baseball Network is also still to be determined. One source notes that the partners have an option to bow out if the advertising goal for the first two years--damaged by the strike--is not met.

A child’s game has gotten rather complicated.

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?