Jeff Blair
PHILADELPHIA — From Thursday's Globe and Mail Published on Wednesday, Oct. 29, 2008 9:25PM EDT Last updated on Tuesday, Mar. 31, 2009 9:03PM EDT
It's not often you get to see batting practice between innings, but this was uncharted territory for Major League Baseball. So, the Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays took regular BP Wednesday night before the resumption of Game 5.
And there was another first, too: alcohol sales, normally cut off after the seventh inning in games at Citizens Bank Park, were cut off in the top of the ninth, ensuring fans had plenty of added fuel for any postgame festivities.
“Today is a new event,” David Freireich, the spokesman for stadium concessionaire Aramark, told The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Baseball must hope television viewers see it that way. The first 51/2 innings of Game 5 drew the lowest ratings ever for a fifth game of a World Series. Going into Wednesday night, World Series ratings are down 24 per cent from last year and 20 per cent behind the current low for a full World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals' five-game victory over the Detroit Tigers in 2006.
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