Sam Donnellon: Bud Selig is for Fox Network, not for you

YOU KNOW THE list by heart: Bobby Nystrom was offsides in 1980. We had O.J. Simpson until the Eagles screwed up the endgame. What if Eric Lindros had not been knocked out by Scott Stevens?

Smarty Jones was a lock to win the Triple Crown. A lock. Don't even talk to me about Barbaro. If Donovan McNabb had just taken some Maalox before that final aborted drive in the Super Bowl against the Patriots, are we really talking about a 25-year drought right now?

Oh, and by the way: Rocky won that first fight over Apollo Creed.

I counted the punches. He was robbed, period.

But it's not as good of a story, is it? Same with your 2008 Philadelphia Phillies. Up to now, they've been riding a pretty good wave. The Milwaukee Brewers were a punchless, pitchless mess. The Dodgers relievers took care of the Cubs, then served up that pivotal Game 4 lead to the Phillies very nicely.

The Phillies pitchers stopped the Rays hitters cold. Most of them anyway. Tampa has scored more runs on B.J. Upton's feet than they have with Evan Longoria's bat, and on any other night but Monday night, they would have been eliminated by now, and the drought over.

Drought? It's a funny word to use here, isn't it? Talk about dripping irony.

Will this be the first time a drought continues because of torrential rains? Baseball commissioner Bud Selig better pray not. If he thinks our treatment of Santa Claus was bad, wait until he sees how we handle a Grinch.

Make no mistake. This mess is on Bud and his network pals. If the Phillies somehow figure out a way to lose this thing, he is Leon Stickle times a billion.

Then he whipped out his very best (worst?) Budspeak afterward. My favorite answer Monday night was when someone asked about the 45,940, who were given the choice to sit through the mess or eat their incredibly expensive tickets.

"I think I've explained that," said Bud, but he never did. He ripped into weathermen, talked about valiant groundskeepers, spread the blame to both ownership groups.

"Everyone said, 'Let's play,' " the most wishy-washy commissioner in all of sports said about the wishy-washy conditions.

Yeah, sure. That's exactly what those 45,940 were saying underneath their Thinsulate.

Bud also put those poor umpires on the podium the other night, backing his play.

I mean, if these guys have to explain themselves one more time this Series, they might get charged with a crime.

"What we look for as umpires is the integrity of the mound and the batter's box, and that was never compromised," umpire crew chief Tim Welke said.

Huh?

"That was probably the worst conditions I've ever played under in my life," Tampa's Carlos Pena told ESPN's Jayson Stark. "It was really, really cold. Windy. And it was raining nonstop. I mean, when do you ever see a puddle at home plate?"

Just don't slip in it Carlos, OK?

Because then integrity would be compromised.

There was a whole lot more gobbledygook uttered about Monday night's gobbledygook conditions. Clearly trying to outdo Welke, first-base umpire Tim Tschida added his two bits, stating that once the wind "started coming in from rightfield . . . players had trouble catching the ball and now the game runs the risk of being comical."

When it was coming in from leftfield and Jimmy Rollins had his trouble in the fifth inning? Not as funny, I suppose. Tschida was referring to the two pop flies the Rays caught along first base in the bottom of the fifth inning, not Rocco Baldelli's pop to short at the top of the inning that was blown from leftfield back to the pitcher's mound.

Rollins did not catch that one.

Maybe my favorite bit of gobbledygook came from the network announcers, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver. They pipe the audio into the auxiliary press box in leftfield during the World Series, so for the first time this postseason, I am listening to them. Usually when fans complain about announcers' biases, I brush them off, but the barrage of comments from the two in the fifth and sixth innings the other night did sound a bit one-sided.

An example:

After Upton's speed to first factored into Rollins' bobbled throw with two outs in the sixth, the announcers engaged in a long lament about the weather affecting a key part of the Rays game - their speed.

As they went on about this, Upton stole second base rather easily. He might not even have needed to slide.

Why? Because Cole Hamels had to focus on his grip, his delivery. Later, Hamels would concede that he abandoned his curveball because of the weather, and had to limit the use of his best pitch, the changeup, because of the wet conditions.

I heard no mention of that by either announcer - who never, ever, seem to disagree on anything. Earlier, both blamed the early departure of Rays starter Scott Kazmir on the ball-strike calls of home plate umpire Jeff Kellogg.

They said Kazmir had been "squeezed."

He walked six and hit Chase Utley.

All that squeezing, he's lucky to be alive.

An inning earlier, on a 3-1 count with bases loaded and two outs, Kellogg called a borderline strike on Utley. If it went the other way, it's Phillies 3, Rays 1 - at least.

But that may not have gotten us to a Game 6, or a Game 7, underneath the antiseptic dome in Tampa, where Rupert Murdoch has a hand over Mother Nature. A Game 5 finish would have affected ad revenue for Fox and Major League Baseball; would have made all those suits feel almost as miserable as the 45,940 who sat there for more than 2 hours Monday night.

I grew up around New York, a Mets fan. But I really hope the Phillies win tonight. Partly because it's the team I cover.

But mostly because I really hate what baseball and the network very purposefully did to the 45,940 the other night, on behalf of their bottom line. *

Send e-mail to donnels@phillynews.com.

For recent columns, go to

http://go.philly.com/donnellon.