Fox, Turner lock in eight-year TV deals

Major League Baseball agreed with Fox and Turner Sports on eight-year contracts that will run through 2021 and keep the World Series on Fox.

The amount baseball receives from the two networks will double to an average of about $800 million annually, with Fox’s share averaging about $500 million.

“Both networks are passionate about baseball and are committed to covering, promoting and growing the sport, and I want to thank them for their continued support,” commissioner Bud Selig said Tuesday.

Fox also will retain rights to the All-Star Game and a league championship series every year, and adds coverage of two division series starting in 2014. Fox broadcast the World Series in 1996 and ’98, and has had exclusive rights in 2000.

TBS will retain the rights to air one league championship series, two division series and one wild-card game.

MLB Network will continue to have the right to two games from one division series in the new eight-year deal.

Fox and TBS will alternate between showing the American League and National League playoffs from year to year. MLB Network’s two division series game will come from Fox’s games.

Mets

Knuckleballer R.A. Dickey’s best season yet ended with a no-decision and some surprising news: He’ll have surgery Oct. 18. Dickey revealed he has pitched since late April with a strained oblique. Following the operation, Dickey said, he expects to be ready for the start of spring training. Dickey struck out Marlins’ one-shot wonder Adam Greenberg on Tuesday. Greenberg fanned on three pitches when he batted for the first time in seven years in the sixth inning. He signed a one-day contract with Miami before the game, his first since he was beaned in his major league debut in 2005.

Indians

Outspoken closer Chris Perez thinks the Indians need a more intense manager and better players. Perez said that Cleveland’s second-half collapse was embarrassing and the laid-back approach of former manager Manny Acta didn’t help. “August wasn’t baseball, it was pathetic,” Perez said.

Tigers

Detroit right-hander Max Scherzer’s will miss his start in the regular-season finale in Kansas City after twisting it during the on-field celebration of Detroit’s AL Central title Monday night.

Mariners

The fences at Safeco Field are coming in next season after years of debate on the impact that having one of the more vast outfields in baseball was having on the Seattle offense. The biggest change will come in the left-center field alley, where the fence will move in as much as 17 feet from its current dimension.