Those of you expecting to watch the Phillies and listen to Harry Kalas Friday night had to settle for listening to Don Sutton.
Comcast Cable subscribers in Lancaster County could not get a local broadcast of the game with the Phillies announcers, because the game was on WPSG-TV CW 57 in Philadelphia, a channel not offered by Comcast to Lancaster subscribers.
The game, a 6-0 Phillies' win, was on MASN2, which is picked up on Comcast Lancaster on channel 65. The channel is normally reserved for CSPAN2, but is used when the Baltimore Orioles and Washington Nationals are playing at the same time. MASN and MASN2 cover Orioles and Nationals games. Because Philadelphia was playing the Nationals, Phillies fans could see their first-place team as it competes for a National League division title and a spot in the playoffs for the first time since 1993.
The Phillies Web site —
Phillies.com — had the game listed on Comcast Sportnet, further confusing and frustrating local fans. The team changed the listing to CW 57 at 5 p.m. Friday.
WLYH-TV CW 15 in Harrisburg often picks up Phillies games airing on CW 57, but, according to vice president and general manager Jim Berman, CW 15 could not preempt network programming Friday night
"We got stuck in a dilemma," Berman said. "We are only allowed so many preemptions a year and we are clean out of preemptions. We'd create a problem with the network if we tried to put the Phillies on.
"It's one of those things that sneaked up on us. When preempting prime time it is really hard. It's hard to predict. We were not anticipating this [last night] being a big game."
The CW Network airs professional Wrestling "Smackdown" on Friday nights. The show has a loyal following.
Berman said the CW 15 was set to cover the last two regular season Phillies games Saturday and Sunday, but Fox Network took Saturday's game. CW 15 will air Sunday's 1:35 p.m. game.
"If we knew the Phillies would come back in the race we'd plan things better," Berman said. "The Mets had this in the bag. It's unfortunate because we feel we've let Phillies fans down, but we have commitments to the network."
Eric Stark is a Sunday News staff writer and can be reached at estark@lnpnews.com.
