McGwire Swings and L.A. Misses--Thanks Fox

In this day and age of sports television, when everything and anything gets on the air, you’d think the nation would get to see the game in which Mark McGwire became the third man in baseball history to hit 60 home runs in a season.

But no.

Incredibly, the St. Louis Cardinals’ 7-0 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Saturday was not nationally televised, and was not shown in Los Angeles.

Fox showed the game in 61% of the nation at 10 a.m. PDT, but not on the West Coast, which instead got the Dodgers and San Francisco Giants at 1 p.m.

The obvious question: Why didn’t Fox give the West Coast a doubleheader--the Cardinals and Reds followed by the Dodgers and Giants?

“Television doesn’t work that easy,” Fox spokesman Vince Wladika said. “Saturday morning programming had been scheduled, in this case children’s programming, and advertising had been sold.

“We said all along that the game would not be televised unless McGwire had 60 or 61 home runs going in. The important thing here is [today’s] game will be televised.”

The Cardinals and Reds will follow an NFL game between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers at 1:10 p.m. on Channel 11.

Fox is showing the baseball game to 80% of the country. Dallas, Phoenix, Philadelphia and Chicago will not get the baseball game because Fox is obligated to show those cities’ NFL teams in the home markets.

The L.A. situation Saturday could have been even worse. McGwire could have been in position to tie or break Maris’ record, and still the game would not have been shown here.

Asked to confirm that Channel 11 would not have shown Saturday’s game even if McGwire had 60 or 61 home runs going in, Wladika said yes, that was the case. He would not say why, but it is obvious Channel 11 didn’t want to lose its Saturday morning advertising revenue.

And that’s a shame. There are times when television, a public medium, should do what’s best for the public, even if it means preempting such programs as “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” and taking a financial loss.

Channel 11 executives should not only have been willing to show Saturday’s game, they should have insisted on it, no matter what the network’s plans were. It would have been so easy, because Fox was televising the game to most of the nation anyway.

L.A. baseball fans should not have been deprived of seeing history in the making.