McGwire Has Fox Scrambling

Mark McGwire’s hot bat has forced Fox and major league baseball to rework plans to put his potential record-breaking game on national television.

After McGwire hit his 58th and 59th homers Wednesday night--his second consecutive two-homer game--Fox Sports executive producer Ed Goren announced that the network would add Cardinal games to its schedule Sunday and Tuesday if McGwire has 60 or 61 homers.

Fox also is rearranging its regional plan Saturday to allow as many people as possible to see the St. Louis-Cincinnati game. Cities that don’t get the game in its entirety should be able to see all of McGwire’s at-bats.

If McGwire reaches 60 before Sunday, Fox will show the final game of the Cardinals’ weekend series at 1 p.m. PDT, after its NFL coverage. Fans in parts of Texas and Arizona will still see the Dallas-Arizona football game instead.

Fox also will show Tuesday night’s game between St. Louis and Chicago if either Sammy Sosa or McGwire has 60 or 61 homers. The game previously had been scheduled to be shown on the FX cable network.

The first game of that series will be shown on ESPN at 11 a.m. PDT on Monday.

Fox already has committed to showing all three Cardinal games Sept. 11-13 and also added the Cub-Milwaukee game on Sept. 12 to its Saturday afternoon schedule.