Replay Edit Wasn’t a Conspiracy

If you heard about the tiff between teammates Brad Penny and Kenny Lofton during the third inning of Wednesday’s Dodger game and wanted to check it on that night’s FSN Prime Ticket replay, it wasn’t there.

The third inning was edited out.

A case of hometown station looking out for hometown team?

“No, there was no Machiavellian scheme here,” executive producer Tom Feuer said. “In fact, we have nothing to do with editing the replays. That is done at master control in Houston.

“The key issue is to not edit out any sponsored elements, and there were no sponsored elements during the third inning.”

Normally, the replay of a day game does not require much editing, but this particular replay had to be edited down to two hours because of a Chivas USA telecast on FSN Prime Ticket at 6 p.m.

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Silence Not Always Golden

ESPN has chosen to remain mum about the abrupt firing Monday of baseball studio analyst Harold Reynolds. ESPN, itself in the business of gathering news, only confirmed the firing, nothing else. This led to all kinds of rumors before Reynolds himself and other sources said he was fired for sexual harassment. Reynolds, who is married, has a child and is described by ESPN insiders as a polite, religious man, told the New York Post it was a “misinterpreted hug.”

USA Today reported that Reynolds was told Wednesday by ESPN/ABC Sports President George Bodenheimer that ESPN would not reconsider its decision to fire him. That might imply there was more than a hug. Still, mum’s the word from ESPN, leaving viewers who liked Reynolds’ on-air work left to only wonder what really happened.

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Bad Ratings, Bad News

The news Thursday about Floyd Landis was not good for OLN, which televises the Tour de France. Neither were the final ratings for its 23 days of coverage. OLN averaged a 0.3 rating, down from a 0.8 last year when Lance Armstrong won for the seventh consecutive time.

OLN has a Tour de France review scheduled for Sunday at 4 p.m. and 10 p.m. Producers were probably scrambling to update it Thursday. An OLN spokeswoman did not return calls.

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FSN, Pac-10 Extend Deal

The Pacific 10 conference and FSN used Thursday’s Pac-10 media day to announce a multiyear agreement that extends the network’s rights to 18 Pac-10 football games a season, plus 35 Olympic sports.

The extension is believed to run through the 2011-12 academic year.

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Sign of Things to Come

It’s not available outside the New York area, but Yes Network and DirecTV have a new interactive venture that allows viewers of Yankees games to call up a box score or an up-to-the-minute scoreboard, go to split-screen coverage, and preview upcoming batters.

Tracy Dolgin, the chief executive of Yes Network, told the New York Times that this takes baseball viewing to “a whole new level.”