MLB keeps piling on late-night insults

THE degree to which MLB has sold its soul to ESPN for Late Sunday Night Baseball, starring notorious drug-cheat and liar Alex Rodriguez, has trampled all the good senses.

The Yankees are now scheduled to play a late Sunday night game on Aug. 26 at the Orioles, the latter a mere 42½ games out of first. The quality of the game or teams doesn’t matter. MLB has allowed ESPN to choose games played by only large TV market teams.

Reader Jim Silva’s 8year-old grandson was going to attend that game in Baltimore, taken by relatives who live in Maryland. Now? It’s iffy. When the kid was 5, he was similarly shut out of a Sunday afternoon game when, after tickets were purchased, it was “flexed” to an 8:10 p.m. start for ESPN money. And commissioner

Rob Manfred has the audacity to claim that kids are MLB’s most important now-and-forever humans.

Last Sunday’s Cubs-Cards ESPN night game, scheduled for a 7:10 CT start, was delayed 1:16 by rain, thus became another that ended well after midnight for more than half the nation’s population.

The Sunday before that, Mets-Yanks was delayed for an hour before, at 9 p.m., it was declared a rainout, leaving thousands with nothing in exchange for their $42 parking and hideously overpriced food and drinks. That Sunday afternoon was perfect for a baseball game.

The Game, the way it’s now misplayed, mismanaged and mistreats its best customers, can no longer afford to take anyone for granted.

But tonight, the nowstandard Yanks-Red Sox extra-late Late Sunday night game. Who loves ya, baby?