Hello baseball fans: another year of playoff action has come and gone, and this was a truly memorable postseason. We saw upset after upset, heartwarming story after heartwarming story, and the playoff success of the best player since Babe Ruth, and yet ratings are at a new low. Why is the public displaying apathy towards the national pastime? The reasons are simple and can be counted on two fingers, one being Major League Baseball's tremendous ability to screw up every chance to do things right, and the other being Fox, ABC and ESPN's horrible management of their rights to broadcast playoff baseball. First off, let me start with that wonderful network that brought us such critically acclaimed shows as State of Grace and Two of a Kind, (Starring Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen): ABC Family. What in the name of Julio Franco made MLB decide that ABC Family could carry some of the divisional series games? I mean they reach fewer homes than TLC and only a few million more than Home and Garden TV. Should any of the games of the outstanding Athletics-Twins series have been played out on a non-network? It is a travesty! I honestly believe that the fact that allowing postseason action on a second tier cable channel belittles the great history that the sport has, not to mention all the great players currently active and in their prime.

Lest we forget the monkeys in the announcing booth, for they are as much part of the problem as anything. In the divisional series we were graced with the "soothing" commentary of that famous beacon of baseball cunning: Joe Morgan. Joe Morgan may be the worst announcer ever to be given a national audience. He adds nothing to the game, and while he was one of the greatest players of all-time, he clearly demonstrates no knowledge of the actual game of baseball. Joe Morgan has said ridiculous thing after ridiculous thing, and yet he will still be returning to ESPN next year, marking his second decade of mind-numbingly stupid comments broadcast to a national audience that is becoming progressively dumber time goes on, thanks mostly to Morgan's "opinions."

Of course, FOX also has its fair share of mediocrity in the announcing booth. First, we have Joe Buck, son of the legendary broadcaster Jack Buck. Frankly, this is nepotism at its worst. Joe Buck brings nothing to the booth other than a reasonably soothing voice. He often has no idea what is actually going on in the game, and his words often reflect this. When he is calling the game, he launches into long narratives about the past of a player, attempting, unsuccessfully I might add, to tug at our heartstrings, while the importance of the pitcher-batter match up gets little attention. He is joined in the booth by former major leaguer Tim McCarver. McCarver claims to be an expert on all things baseball, in fact, he even released an interactive CD-ROM, teaching all he knew about the game, thereby damning the youth of America to a future of poor fundamentals. A sample McCarver gem is this "Giambi gets on base too much. By walking so often, he clogs up the bases." Anyone who cannot understand the simple value of a walk or of not making an out has no business in the announcer's booth. Perhaps networks will one day wise up and go after truly knowledgeable people, like John Thorn or Bill James, but, in reality, it is about as likely as Jason Tyner hitting three homers in a game.

Another glaring problem is the length of games. Every single game in the World Series has finished at an ungodly hour. Unfortunately, by scheduling the games the way they do, they often make it impossible for people to catch the games in their entirety. The fairest solution would be to schedule games with a 6:30 start, and that way, there would be a fair share of primetime television to bring in ad revenue, while at the same time raising the potential viewer base. It is a win-win situation, however it will never be implemented, because the people in charge seem dead set on their eight o'clock start times that beget midnight seventh inning stretches. Of course, there are numerous little things that could be done to speed up the games, however, then Fox would only be able to replay the Santiago homerun six times as opposed to eight.

To summarize, this has been an extraordinary postseason. In spite of all of the screw-ups I mentioned above, I still thoroughly enjoyed the games. Of course, I often have the TV on mute, and use the time when FOX is showing fifteen different shots of people in the crowd to reach for the popcorn. If baseball even made a slight effort to right this sinking ship, the World Series could once again become the Fall Classic.