BARK AT THE MOON

Night games put MLB profits ahead fans

WE NOW just shrug and surrender. Declaration of war? We don’t even threaten a skirmish. No resistance, just full, silent compliance. We just do as we’re told.

Thursday, during the Mets’ home opener on SNY, Gary Cohen noted the Mets were scheduled “to play a rare Saturday afternoon game.”

“How about that?” replied Keith Hernandez. “I just about fell out of my chair when I saw that.”

Think about that. Think how Saturday afternoons at big league ballgames were, for 70, 80, 90, 100 years, both the best and most logical time to play big league baseball games, especially for the ticket-buying public.

But over just the past four seasons, MLB, long ago having established TV money as its only priority, has turned Saturday afternoon games into scarcities. That should strike us all as impossible, insufferable and immediately reversible.

But there has been no united or even splintered media opposition response to such a fundamental be- trayal of ThThe GGame.

Just one more to add to the list: Once it was impossible the World Series would exclusively become late prime-time programming, that for the extended good and welfare of The Game, at least weekend af- ternoon WWorldld SSeriesi games would be played.

Once upon a time, and not too long ago, the idea MLB would sell its authority to TV to schedule Sunday night 8:30 games — often ending near midnight, many played in near Arctic condi- tionsi — wouldld hhave been mocked as preposterous.

And then that grew worse, as MLB sold its authority to allow ESPN to late-switch/ bait-and-switch games from Sunday 1:05 starts — tickets sold as family come-on games — to 8:30 starts.

And this preposterous Sunday situation persists as well as a media capitulation that never even attempted to shame MLB into a minimal restoration of its soldat-auction soul.

Last year, Commissioner Rob Manfred may have brought tears to his own eyes when he nobly proclaimed that, “Major League Baseball’s greatest responsibility is to ensure that today’s youth become active participants in our game as players and fans.”

He added that MLB “has a commitment to building a stronger connection between young people and the national pastime.”

Yeah, sure. Then it was back to creating or at least approving schedules that eliminate weekend afternoon games.

Does Manfred, gut to head, not know that this is wrong? Does he not know that this should not be done to baseball nor should he be the one who does it?

Or is he good with being known as the kid-loving commissioner who allowed the elimination of Saturday afternoon baseball? Can’t shame the shameless.