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from Thursday, Sept. 3

Fox, ESPN Expand
McGwire, Sosa Coverage

Baseball, Fox and ESPN divvied up next week's Cardinals games to make sure fans across the country could see live every Mark McGwire swing for baseball history.

But those plans may change as quickly as it takes McGwire or Sammy Sosa to hit a 450-foot homer. As of Thursday, though, here is the tentative national television schedule for McGwire.

The exact games, times (all in EDT) and network locations are:

Tuesday, Sept. 8 Cubs at Cardinals McGwire Does It!!!

Wednesday, Sept. 9 Cardinals at Reds 7:30 p.m., ESPN

Thursday, Sept. 10 Cardinals at Reds 7:30 p.m., Fox Net

Friday, Sept. 11 Cardinals at Astros 8 p.m.

Saturday, Sept. 12 Cardinals at Astros 1 p.m., Fox

Sunday, Sept. 13 Cardinals at Astros 8 p.m.

The New York Times reported Wednesday that Fox is still talking with baseball about showing Cubs games on Sept. 11 and Sept. 13 if Sammy Sosa has 60 homers. Those games are scheduled to be seen on WGN-TV, a superstation available in 47 million cable homes. The paper reported that Fox could supplement WGN's coverage by airing the games on its regional cable channels in markets not served by WGN.

Before Friday's games, McGwire had 59 home runs while Sosa was at 56.

"My head is about to explode as I think about all the scenarios," Fox executive producer Ed Goren told The Associated Press. "We will pull the trigger when they get to 60. But if one of them hits five home runs in the next four days, everything is out the window."

It was not immediately clear how long Fox would continue to show McGwire or Sosa games if either one was still at 60 or 61 after Sept. 13, although that possibility seems increasingly unlikely.

ESPN had offered to televise the game on Tuesday, Sept. 8. But baseball officials opted to put the game on FX, despite the fact that the Fox cable station is available in about half as many homes as ESPN (37 million to 73 million).

Baseball officials said they choose FX because they had moved the Sept. 12 Cardinals-Astros games from FX to Fox, thus owing FX an additional game. FX has offered cable operators that do not carry the network a free one-night preview with no strings attached. It is uncertain how many operators will pick up the game.

"There is always a concern about the number of homes, but given the contractual obligations, we considered this the right thing to do," baseball spokesman Rich Levin said in the AP story..

ESPN didn't agree with baseball's decision.

"We are obviously disappointed with baseball's decision," ESPN spokesman Mike Soltys told AP.

Baseball and ESPN are in the middle of a dispute over the placement of Sunday night games in September. ESPN tried to move the last three Sunday night games of the season to ESPN2 to accommodate its new $4.8 billion deal with the NFL. Baseball balked at the move and gave the games back to the teams to sell locally. Both sides have threatened to sue for breach of contract.

(To read more about baseball and ESPN's Sunday night dispute, click here.)

The home run chase has helped drive up baseball ratings this season. Sunday night's Braves-Cardinals game got a 5.0 rating, the highest ever in ESPN's eight years of showing games on Sunday nights. The previous high was a 4.5 for a Giants-Dodgers game on Sept. 29, 1991.

Fox averaged a 4.4 rating for its five Saturday afternoon games in August, its highest month of ratings ever.

A ratings point represents 980,000 households for Fox and 730,000 for ESPN.

This report was compiled from The Associated Press and other news reports.

By George Stahl

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