Rocks-Sox:The word from FOX

Baseball’s World Series begins tonight on FOX TV, locally on WGHP TV8. Here’s what some of the top brass at FOX had to say about the Series at www.mlb.com:

Rockies vs. Red Sox
“This is an exciting young team,” Ed Goren(the Big Boss at FOX TV) said of Colorado. “There’s a new world in Major League Baseball where markets like Denver, San Diego, Phoenix, Milwaukee … everybody has a chance to show up for the big dance. This is a young, exciting team that we have spent some time over the last week trying to introduce in our pregame show and during games to the American audience. In a way, it’s an investment in the future of baseball, because this team is going to be around for a long time.”

“Once the country gets an opportunity to see these Rockies, to watch them play, I think they’re going to be taken by them,” Eric Karros(FOX baseball analyst) said. “This is an exciting series. For me, it comes down to this: The preseason, everybody’s picking the Red Sox. So arguably, that’s your best team. The best team is playing against baseball’s hottest team. And that’s the way it should be for the world championship.”

Trying to stay awake?
Sure, there are times when you are fighting the eyelids and trying to tough out a late game. It happens to everyone at times. But when asked if the start time for these games are too late, Goren had an answer that might surprise many fans.

“If you go back to last Saturday, the extra-inning game in Boston, the game ended so late that bars were closed by the time we left Fenway,” Goren said. “But ratings for FOX from 11 p.m. to 1:15 a.m. [ET] were higher than the rating from first pitch to 11 o’clock. You can say, ‘Well, it’s a Saturday.’ Trust me, the ratings go up after 11 o’clock.

Torre: Back to the booth?
Now that Joe Torre has declined the Yankees’ offer to return as manager, the question was put to FOX World Series announcers Joe Buck, Eric Karros and Tim McCarver: What will Torre do next?

“I don’t think he’ll manage next year, but I think he’ll manage again,” McCarver said. “I haven’t talked to him, but I think he will definitely manage again. But I think he will take next year off.”

“For Torre, who is great, obviously, with the microphone in front of him, and who was a very good announcer for the Angels, it’s intriguing to me: What he would be like now as an analyst,” Buck said. “I think he would be sensational. So I think if he did jump into the announcing business, wherever it would be, I can’t think of a better option for somebody hiring than a guy who has been in the wars here with the Yankees the last 10 years and done what he’s done and become a TV star along the way. He’s as marketable a guy as anybody who could be out there as a television analyst.”

“He doesn’t take a managing job just for the sake of managing,” Karros said. “Because of the success he’s had, I don’t know if there’s really an opportunity out there that presents itself. But if a large-market team comes up, whether it’s the Dodgers or the Cubs or the Mets … but just to get back into managing, no way.”