Games Tonight at Same Time

With tonight’s two baseball playoff games beginning at 5 p.m., Fox is throwing a splitter -- one game on Fox, one game on FX.

The Florida Marlins and Chicago Cubs will be televised on Channel 11, the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees on FX.

Fox spokesman Dan Bell said his network and Major League Baseball agreed to schedule both league championship series openers for prime time in the East to make them available to the largest audience possible.

According to Bell, a league championship game gets a 26% higher rating in prime time than in daytime, and the available prime-time audience is 53% higher than the available daytime audience.

There is a possibility of two weekday games on the same day again a week from today -- Game 6 of the Red Sox-Yankee series and Game 7 of the Marlin-Cub series.

However, if that is the case, the games will be staggered. Game 6 of the American League series would be at 1 p.m. and Game 7 of the National League series would be at 5 p.m.

-- Larry Stewart

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Atlanta closer John Smoltz had arthroscopic surgery to remove scar tissue in his right elbow.

Smoltz sat out nearly one month late in the season because of tendinitis in the elbow.

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Oakland left fielder Jose Guillen is scheduled for surgery today on his left hand, which he broke in the American League division series against Boston. Guillen played despite a broken hamate bone and batted .455 against the Red Sox.

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The House approved by voice vote legislation to award a Congressional Gold Medal to Jackie Robinson, who broke the major leagues’ color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Robinson was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1962. He died in 1972.

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An angry fan of the Philadelphia Phillies was arrested at his home in Glendale, accused of sending spam e-mail attacks using the return e-mail addresses of team officials and Philadelphia newspaper reporters, a federal prosecutor said.

Allan Eric Carlson, 39, is accused of electronically breaking into computers around the country. The messages were long complaints about Phillies’ management, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Philadelphia.

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Eight former major league umpires who have not regained their jobs are suing to get severance pay and health benefits.

But baseball’s chief labor lawyer said their mass resignation in 1999 violated a contract and made them ineligible for the benefits. The lawsuit was filed Oct. 1.