I came home last night looking forward to watching Monday Night Football on ESPN. However, by the time I settled into my couch, the Eagles already were up 24-7, which quickly turned into 31-7 after a brutal Cam Newton pick 6.

That was it for me. I tuned into Jon Stewart’s rather strange interview with a giggling Bruce Springsteen. Let the man talk, Jon.

As a result, I missed Jon Gruden and Mike Tirico actually making a protein smoothie as they attempted to fill during garbage time.

All these primetime blowouts really are beginning to pile up. As I wrote yesterday, NBC’s Sunday Night Football now has had eight straight games with an average victory margin of 23.5 points.

For the most part, the Thursday night games have been terribly one-sided, with an average victory margin of more than 20 points. And the Sunday doubleheader games have featured several games that turned into routs.

It got me to thinking if this is more than just a bad run for the NFL? Is there something else at work beyond coincidence?

At one level, it suggests that the gap between the haves and the have-nots has gotten much wider, as evidenced by Green Bay’s 55-14 shellacking over Chicago Sunday and Philly’s trouncing of Carolina last night. Both Chicago and Carolina have been major disappointments this year, as they are getting lapped by superior teams.

As a result, once attractive-looking match-ups on paper have become what-else-is-on games for viewers.

But what about one-sided games with top teams, such as New England’s whipping of Denver? I’m hardly a football expert, but I wonder if the sophisticated offenses we’re seeing these days produce more blowouts. One team gets on an unstoppable run, like New England, and suddenly Peyton Manning is down 28-7. It certainly seems like these games get out of hand fairly quickly.

Anyway, the NFL and many football experts will say the blowouts are a coincidence. And maybe they are. But let’s see what they say if the bad run continues.

My latest Chicago Tribune column is on Bob Costas reflecting on all of his Chicago ties on his 40th anniversary in broadcasting.

You also can access the column via my Twitter feed at @Sherman_Report.

Thanks to The Museum of Classic Chicago Television for the picture of young Bob.

Also, check out these vintage clips of Costas via The Museum of Classic Chicago Television.

The Bulls promo featuring Costas in the yellow blazer.

An open to a Bulls game in Seattle. Note the camera angle is so far away, Costas seems as if he is in Portland.

From the column:

*******

Bob Costas has covered so many Olympics, Super Bowls, World Series, U.S. Opens and other big events that they blur together. Yet there’s one entry on his resume that might surprise even hard-core basketball fans.

Costas was the play-by-play voice for the Bulls on WGN-9, calling 19 road games during the 1979-80 season.

Archive footage shows a very young Costas doing a Bulls promo wearing a rather hideous yellow WGN blazer (video).

“WGN had us give it back after the season, as if you’d want to wear that blazer in some swanky restaurant,” Costas said.

It was Rod Thorn, then the Bulls’ general manager, who brought the budding sportscaster to Chicago. They initially connected when Thorn was the coach and Costas did play-by-play for the ABA Spirits of St. Louis during the 1975-76 season.

The Bulls, terrible in the pre-Michael Jordan years, went 2-17 in the games Costas called. He was spared from watching more bad basketball because home games weren’t shown locally then and WGN did not televise all road games.

He, however, never will forget his WGN partner, Johnny “Red” Kerr.

“I’m 27 looking like I’m 14, and he treated me like a million bucks,” Costas said. “He was a great player, but he always played down his own abilities. Once I asked how he would defend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. He said, ‘I’d get as close as I could, breathe on him and try to fog up his goggles.'”

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center is on Bob Ryan, who wrote about his career in a new autobiography.

From the column:

*******

Bob Ryan interrupted our interview for a moment.

“What did Sports Illustrated say about me again?” Ryan said.

Ryan shuffled through the pages of the magazine. Once a print guy, always a print guy. He finally found the page where there was a short review of his autobiography, “Scribe: My Life in Sports.”

The blurb offered praise, saying the book was an entertaining read. Then Ryan read the kicker:

“’…Even though (Ryan) blurred the line between journalist and fan,’” Ryan said.

Ryan paused for a moment about a rather insulting characterization before firing back in his distinctive rapid-fire tone.

“I plead guilty,” said Ryan, his voice rising. “I am a fan. I’ve always been a fan.”

Wait a minute? The great Boston Globe “scribe” would seem to be violating the grand sportswriter’s credo. Jerome Holtzman’s famous book, “No Cheering in the Press Box,” is named that way for a reason.

Since forever, sportswriters were taught to be objective chroniclers of the games other people play. While the crowd below erupts at airliner-decibels, the press box is supposed to be as quiet as the congregation in silent prayer.

Ryan’s long time Globe colleague, Dan Shaughnessy, addressed the issue earlier this year  when he told readers:

“I don’t care if they win. I don’t care if they lose. I love sports. I love football. I love the story. The story can be great, win or lose. But I am not emotional about the outcome.”

Yet here is Ryan in his book declaring openly that he is a fan of the Boston Celtics, a team he covered and the foundation of his journalistic legacy. He is a long-time season-ticket holder to the Boston Red Sox and wants them to win as well.

So what gives?

“I don’t see any problem,” Ryan said. “You can have an allegiance in your heart for the team you’re covering. When the game is over, you put on your journalist’s hat and write the story. I never saw that contradiction. I always wrote for the fan and try to emphasize the fan’s point of view in my stories.”

Ryan also says he has a practical reason for his rooting interests. “It makes for better stories when the home team wins,” he said.

To be clear, Ryan never sat on press row wearing a No. 33 Larry Bird jersey. He didn’t thrust his arms up in the air like that Boston policeman when David Ortiz hit his famous homer against Detroit last year.

Ryan never has pulled any punches on the teams he has covered. Let the record show, he has come down hard early and often in his career.

“I don’t think anyone has ever complained that I ever was too soft on the Celtics,” Ryan said. “Boston College (where Ryan attended school) thinks I’m Mr. Negative. ‘How dare I question things that happened there through the years?’ My bosses never complained about my reporting. All I know is that whatever I did through the years seemed to work pretty well.”

******

Also if you are in the mood for more Ryan, he talks about his career at length in the latest edition of “Still No Cheering in the Press Box” from the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism at Maryland.

It has to be a coincidence, right? There’s really no other way to explain why so many showcase NFL games have turned into what-else-is-on routs this year.

It happened again Sunday. The hype for the latest round of Brady-Manning was far better than the game itself. For someone living in Chicago, the Patriots’ 43-21 victory over Denver didn’t look that much different than their 51-23 drubbing of the Bears.

Then last night, Ben Roethlisberger and Pittsburgh torched Baltimore 43-23. Big Ben is so hot, he will consider it a bad game if he throws for less than 5 TDs in a game.

The blowout continued a perplexing streak for NBC’s Sunday night crew. Take a look at this run on Sunday night:

Sept. 21: Pittsburgh 37, Carolina 19.

Sept. 28: Dallas 38, New Orleans 17.

Oct. 5: New England 43, Cincinnati 17.

Oct. 12: Philadelphia 27, Giants 0.

Oct. 19: Denver 42, San Francisco 17.

Oct. 26:  New Orleans 44, Green Bay 23.

Nov. 2: Pittsburgh 43, Baltimore 23.

That adds up to an average differential of 21.9 points per game in their last seven games. The routs are good for CBS’ “The Good Wife,” not so good for keeping those viewers interested in the fourth quarter.

Don’t look now, but the sagging Bears are at Green Bay next Sunday night. Confidence level not high here in Chicago. Another blowout could be on the agenda for NBC.

My latest Chicago Tribune column is on how former Bears Doug Buffone and Ed O’Bradovich still hit hard after all these years. This time on their Bears postgame shows.

You also can access the column via my Twitter feed at Sherman_Report.

This is one of the most enjoyable stories I’ve written in 30-plus years in the business. I hung out with the two throw-backs last Sunday. All I can is that it was the most fun you can have watching the Bears lose 51-23 to New England.

From the column:

*******

I could have gone to Rush Street last night and found 24 players who could do better than the Bears did today.”

Doug Buffone opening last Sunday’s “Doug and OB Show.”

The game is only a couple of minutes old when Doug Buffone and Ed O’Bradovich erupt for the first time.

Before kickoff of the Bears-Patriots game, Buffone went off on a two-minute rant on how he hates seeing the Bears allow the tight end come off the line untouched. Sure enough, Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski catches the first of his three touchdown receptions without anybody laying a finger on him.

Buffone is 70 now and he is wearing relaxed-fit blue jeans. But he is so irate at what he just saw, he leaps out of his chair with the same first-step quickness he had as a young Bears linebacker chasing down Packers running backs.

“C’mon, are you kidding me?” said Buffone, waving his arms. “You have to pop that guy at the line. When we were playing, that tight end would be on his back.”

The explosion hardly was their last as they watched and suffered in relative privacy. However, it played perfectly to their wheelhouse. A few hours later, the two throwback Bears from another era emerged, primed to hammer the Bears of this era.

Buffone and O’Bradovich have become must-listen radio for frazzled fans on their brutally honest Bears postgame “Doug and OB Show” on WSCR-AM 670. They did their show on location Sunday to a full house at Durbin’s in Tinley Park.

It has been decades since Buffone, who played from 1966-80, and O’Bradovich, a fixture on the Bears defensive line from 1962-71, played their last games, but the passion and competitive fire hardly has faded. Exhibit A: O’Bradovich quickly corrected a caller to the show who noted that the ’85 Bears had the best defense of all time.

“Second best. The ’63 Bears were the best,” said O’Bradovich, who was on that championship team.

Buffone and O’Bradovich rejoice when the Bears win. Yet their vintage work comes after Bears defeats. Make no mistake, the former players whose first coach was George Halas take this personally.

“You’re damn right, I do,” the 74-year old O’Bradovich said.

Even though I have been a resident curmudgeon in this space when it comes to baseball, I’ve never been in the camp that says the sport is dying. Far from it.

The game has many positive indicators that attest to the game’s health. There are plenty of sports that wish they were dying like baseball.

However, there seems to be little question that baseball is underachieving when it comes to the postseason. As I have written many times, World Series ratings declines of 20 to 30 percent aren’t a function of a changing media landscape. This is a relatively recent trend in the last 10 years. In 2005, there were plenty of viewing options when the White Sox four-game sweep of Houston averaged an 11.1 rating.

Back then, that rating was an all-time low for the Series. Now Fox and MLB would do cartwheels if they pulled that kind of number.

That’s why it was so terrific for MLB to have such a memorable Game 7 Wednesday. It was full of everything that makes the game great: Super defense, intrigue on pitching options and a heroic performance for the ages by Madison Bumgartner.

Guess what? People tuned in. Fox pulled a 15.2 overnight rating. According to Sports Media Watch, it is the fourth highest for a World Series game since 2004.

The rating shows there is an audience out there for viewers who will watch good, compelling baseball. The challenge is for MLB to figure out a way to deliver more of it in the postseason and World Series.

Not pound a dead horse–OK, I will–but the easiest fix is doing something about pace of play. My colleague Phil Hersh of the Chicago Tribune sent me a Twitter message yesterday about Pittsburgh’s famous 10-9 victory over the Yankees in Game 7 of the 1960 World Series:

“The Bill Maz’ finish? 19 runs, 24H, 8 pitchers. Time of Game: 2:36.”

Meanwhile, Wednesday’s 3-2 game with 14 hits took 3:10 with only two pitching changes occurring within an inning. It took two hours to play five innings before Bumgartner and the Kansas City bullpen accelerated the pace by retiring virtually everyone down the stretch.

The other game times for the Series: 3:32, 3:25, 3:15, 4:00, 3:09, 3:21.

You can’t blame it all on more commercials. At most, the extra ads add about 15 minutes to the game time.

However, it wouldn’t hurt if Fox and MLB went back to a two-minute break in between innings, instead of nearly three, in the World Series. Perhaps they could get premium rates from sponsors who want to be hailed as being part of the effort to quicken the game. Think Masters and its limited commercials.

Whatever happens, it seems certain that MLB will implement some measures to improve the pace.

It may take time, but a quicker, easier-to-watch game will lure back viewers who have gone elsewhere, and ideally younger fans who can’t sit through 3:30 games.

Yes, Wednesday was a good night for baseball. But it needs more than one night to reach its potential.

Your turn, new commissioner Rob Manfred. Let’s see what you can do.

My old pal and golf book co-author, Leonard Shapiro, asked if he could have this space to share some memories on Ben Bradlee. Shapiro had a long and distinguished career at the Washington Post as a sportswriter and editor. How good was he? Well, his name is on a plaque at the NFL Hall of Fame.

Looking back, Shapiro recalls he likely wouldn’t have gotten to Canton if not for Bradlee. Here’s Len.

********

He gave the stamp of approval to my hiring. He always had my back while covering the media-unfriendly Washington Redskins. And he once saved my career.

That would be Benjamin C. Bradlee, the long-time executive editor of The Washington Post who died last week at the age of 93.  Countless tributes have poured in from around the planet, each one so well-deserved for a man myself and many of my colleagues at the paper considered the greatest editor of his or any other generation.

Most of the focus has been on Bradlee’s commandeering leadership role in the Post’s publishing of the Pentagon papers, followed by his overseeing the paper’s relentless pursuit of Richard Nixon that ultimately led to his resignation, the only American president ever to leave the White House in utter disgrace.

Still, very little has been written about Bradlee’s great affection for sports, and yes, even some sportswriters. After all, when he joined the newspaper in 1965, he inherited one of the giants in our end of the industry, the Post’s late,  great sports columnist, Shirley Povich. Bradlee, and virtually anyone who ever lived in the Nation’s Capital (including Nixon, by the way) adored Povich’s erudite writing style and always spot on daily columns for more than sixty years.

And of course, Bradlee was a huge fan of the Washington Redskins. At the time he joined The Post, the team was being operated by Bradlee’s great friend, renowned trial lawyer Edward Bennett Williams, a part-owner and the team preident. In fact, Bradlee was a regular in Williams owner’s box at RFK Stadium, along with Art Buchwald.

The three would meet before every Sunday home game at the Georgetown drugstore owned by another pal, Doc Dalinsky, and then all of them would commute to the game, watching the action from the best seats in the house.

I was assigned to cover the Redskins as the principal beat reporter in 1973 at the ripe old age of 26. Needless to say, it was a daunting assignment, considering the massive readership, including a very interested executive editor closely following the daily coverage.

Not long after the team began practicing back in Washington following the close of training camp in ’73, I quickly learned what it meant to have your editors on your side. I had written a story about some finagling on the team’s roster by the devious head coach, George Allen (reporters used to call him “Nixon with a whistle”), who once had even been caught trading draft choices he didn’t own. Allen was furious at the story and said if that’s how I was going to operate, he didn’t want me covering his team. I told him if he had a problem, call my editor.

So he called Bradlee, who told him in no uncertain terms that I was The Post’s man at Redskins Park, and if I wasn’t allowed in the front door, we’d simply stop covering the team during the week and only report on the games. I went back the next day, and the next day, and stayed on the beat for seven years, even outlasting Allen, and never hearing that threat again.

Early in the 1977 season—Allen’s last—the Redskins were badly underachieving at a time when they also had the highest payroll in the league, about $4 million. Total. One of Bradlee’s deputy editors thought it would be a grand idea to see how much the players were being paid. Over the next few weeks, I went about gathering information from various sources and eventually published a story that included a chart with every player’s salary, information that was not readily available the way it is these days.

The piece appeared on the front page of the newspaper—not the sports section—and the reaction at Redskins Park was predictable. The players were not happy. Neither was Allen. When I walked into the locker room after practice, wads of tape were being thrown my way, and at least one jockstrap, as well. The verbal abuse also was not particularly pleasant, and while interviewing Allen outside along with several other reporters, one player stuck his head out the locker room door and yelled “don’t worry George, we didn’t talk to him.”

At that point, the coach and I had a somewhat heated “discussion” before I went back up to the press room to write for the next day’s paper. When I left the building that evening, I’m sure my blood pressure was still off the charts, even after several calming chats with my editors in the sports department.

Two days later, a letter on Washington Post stationary arrived at my home.

“Dear Len,” it read. “I’m an admirer of your guts and have been for some time. Hang in there and don’t let those animals worry you.”

It was signed “Ben.” I framed that note, and it remains one of my most cherished possessions, hung in a place of honor at my home.

The career save came in 1986, when I accepted a job to become sports editor of United Press International. It was the chance to run a worldwide news gathering operation then under new ownership. The salary was spectacular and they were even going to move the entire operation from New York to Washington.

After much thought, many sleepless nights and clearly not enough due diligence on my part, I decided to leave The Post, where I had been serving as deputy sports editor, No. 2 in the department. My last assignment for the paper was to be the on-site editor at the Super Bowl, clearly a nice way to go out. It also afforded me a chance to meet with a large contingent of UPI staffers who had been assigned to cover the game, as well.

It did not go well. Several of their long-time stringers asked me when they could be expected to be paid money that had been overdue for months. Several friends covering the NFL beat for UPI told me point blank I was making a mistake, that things had deteriorated badly since I had first interviewed for the job several months before and that the new ownership was already breaking promises.

For the next few days, it was more sleepless nights and jittery days. Finally on the Friday before the Super Bowl, I picked up the phone and called Ben Bradlee. I told him I thought I’d made a serious mistake and asked if he’d consider allowing me to come back to the paper in my old job.

Just recalling his response still gives me goosebumps.

“That’s great news,” he said in that famously raspy voice. “I’ll see you Monday kid.”

Thank you Ben.

For everything.

Yet more reasons to love Jeff Van Gundy.

The ESPN/ABC analyst showed he is in mid-season form on a teleconference yesterday. He gave some advice on something that needs to be done in the wake of the NBA’s new $24 billion TV deal. Are you listening, Adam Silver?

“I just think we have to keep the fan in mind.  And I think sometimes when you’re in this prosperity era, where everything is going well, we can lose sight of who are the main reasons for our successes – the great players, the people who drive the business aspect, but it’s also the fans that continue to buy the product.

“I think we have to look out as all this money is getting passed around. How can we make it better for the fan?  Is there a way to cut concessions or ticket prices to make it more affordable?  I think it’s something we need to explore.”

I’m sure this is Silver’s response: “We’ll take it under advisement.”

*****

Van Gundy also lobbied for the NBA to reduce or even eliminate the back-to-back games. Again, he had the fans in mind.

“I think this goes to the fan idea. I think fans oftentimes get an inferior product on back-to-back games, and I think that has to be the number one thing that gets addressed for the fans and for the players. – the elimination or the drastic reduction of back-to-back games.  And I think it starts with the owners giving up preseason games.  There’s no need and I’ll tell you how you know there’s no need for these preseason games – it’s because no one plays in them.

“And yet we charge the same prices.  And so let’s stop with the ruse that we need seven preseason games or eight preseason games to get a team ready.  So let’s play two games, three games, and start the regular season two weeks earlier so we can eliminate some back to back games.  Let’s not have as long a period at the All-Star break for back-to-back games.

“So we can reduce them.  And let’s extend the season a week or two in the regular season so that we can drastically reduce – or the goal should be to totally eliminate back-to-back games.  I think that more so than the number of games of 82 or the length of a game of the 48 minutes needs to be changed. Because again, as a fan, they deserve our very best and you never want to give your players excuses, but to expect them to play great after playing the night before and flying three hours to a different time zone to have the same energy I think is a stretch and I think it leads to a lot of bad basketball and doesn’t give the product that we should be giving our fans.”

Silver’s likely response? Thanks, Jeff, but worry about LeBron, Kobe and Derrick.

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on the sportswriter equivalent of Ruth, Gehrig and DiMaggio covering the 1932 World Series.

******

If I could go back to a moment in sports history, I definitely would place myself in Wrigley Field on Oct. 1, 1932.

After being fully immersed in writing my book, Called Shot: The Myth and Mystery Behind Baseball’s Greatest Home Run, it would be great to determine if Babe Ruth really pointed to centerfield during Game 3 of the Yankees-Cubs World Series. However, I also have another reason.

As a sportswriter, I would have given anything to be in that Wrigley Field press box.

I dedicated a chapter in the book to what the sportswriters wrote, or didn’t write, about Ruth’s “Called Shot.” In the early days of radio, and way before TV, sportswriters were kings of all media. Their viewpoints provided crucial evidence in separating myth from reality on that fateful day.

Yet there was something else that also stood out: It might have been the greatest collection of sportswriters ever in a press box.

The Wrigley Field roll call included:

Grantland Rice (pictured above): Perhaps the most important sportswriter of all-time, his colorful prose made legends out of Ruth, Red Grange, Knute Rockne and more. Rice’s celebrity was as big as the stars he covered.

Ring Lardner: One of the first acclaimed sports columnists and a master short story writer, he listed F. Scott Fitzgerald among his friends, and his work influenced a young writer named Ernest Hemingway.

Damon Runyon: He began his career as a sportswriter, but would eventually go on to become a fixture on Broadway. His short stories were the inspiration for the musical, Guys and Dolls, which helped create a vibe for the theater area and beyond in New York.

Arch Ward: The young sports editor of the Chicago Tribune had a brilliant idea to celebrate the 1933 World’s Fair in Chicago. How about an exhibition game featuring the best players of the American League facing the best players of the National League? Thus, the first All-Star game was played in 1933 at Comiskey Park. Fittingly, Ruth hit the first All-Star home run.

Paul Gallico: The New York Daily News sports columnist soon would grow tired of sports in the late ‘30s and decide to write novels. He would go on to write The Snow Goose and The Poseidon Adventure, which would be adapted into a huge hit movie starring Gene Hackman.

Red Smith and Shirley Povich: The press box also included a couple of 27-year-old sportswriters who were just beginning to lay the foundations of their legends: Smith, who was working for the St. Louis Journal, and Povich of the Washington Post.

Imagine Smith and Povich as young sportswriters walking into a World Series press box and seeing Rice, Lardner, Runyon and Gallico and other big names pounding away on their typewriters. It must have been an awesome and inspirational sight.

No offense to the current collection of sportswriters assembled in the press box for this year’s World Series, but the scene has changed considerably. The Fall Classic isn’t even a must-cover for the major sports columnists. When I was assigned to the World Series in the mid-‘80s, I was part of a five-man coverage team for the Chicago Tribune, including three columnists. This year, the Trib is sending one reporter, Paul Sullivan, to cover Kansas City-San Francisco.

Back in 1932, baseball was everything. Pro football barely existed, and it would be decades before the NFL ate up everything, including baseball.

If you were a sportswriter, covering the World Series was the pinnacle. You were part of the ultra elite in the profession.

“The sportswriters were absolutely the best writers on the papers in those days, and baseball writing was the best of all jobs on a newspaper,” said Marshall Hunt in Jerome Holtzman’s fabulous book, No Cheering in the Press Box.

The rules also were quite different back then. The writers traveled on the trains with the teams they covered and often became close friends with the players, including Ruth. None of them dared to write about the slugger’s extracurricular activities away from the field.

Sportswriters served a different role, especially during the early days of the Great Depression. Readers wanted an escape from the bleak economic news. They needed to hear stories about larger-than-life athletes performing larger-than-life exploits.

“The nation was looking for a lift,” MLB historian John Thorn said in my book. “In 1932, it was the heart of the Depression. It was a dark, dark year. The public was anxious to grab on to something that frothy and fun.”

The sportswriters in the Wrigley Field might have been the greatest igniters of Ruth’s “Called Shot.” I detailed their stories from the game in my book.

Joe Williams of the New York World Telegram is largely credited as starting the legend in motion. He wrote: “Ruth pointed to the center field and punched a screaming liner to a spot where no ball ever had been hit before.”

There is a misconception that Williams was the only writer who wrote about “The Called Shot” in his next day story. Actually, that isn’t true, as I document examples from other writers who make a reference to Ruth pointing.

Still, there were plenty of writers who made no mention of “The Called Shot” in their initial stories, thus stirring the debate. Rice was the most prominent. He didn’t dive into Ruth’s signature moment until his second-day column.

Rice wrote:

“His beaming countenance wore a broad grin. He then pointed to center field. And around five seconds later his famous line-drive lash—not much higher than [Primo] Camera’s head—sailed across the barrier.”

Ah yes, they don’t write like that anymore, do they?

The times have changed. While there still are many immensely talented sportswriters, they get dwarfed by personalities on ESPN and elsewhere. Stephen A. Smith has a much higher profile than every columnist in print or on the Web.

So as yet another World Series begins, it is worth recalling that once upon a time, sportswriters ruled the media landscape. In 1932, there were true giants in the Wrigley Field press box.

Oh, how I envy a young Smith and Povich for being there.

On the one hand, Kansas City is a great story. America loves an underdog, and the small market Royals returning to the World Series fills the bill.

Unfortunately, there are plenty of other hands for this year’s World Series.

The series features two wildcard teams, neither of which won 90 games. There is a huge vacuum of star power.

Kansas City doesn’t have a George Brett to give it instant identity. However, you can be sure Fox will show plenty of shots of Brett cheering in his private box.

While the Giants could win their third World Series in the last five years, they might go down as the dullest dynasty of all time. Buster Posey is a great player, but you don’t stop everything to watch him at the plate.

The Giants have not been much-watch TV.

The Giants’ last World Series appearance produced an all-time low 7.6 rating in 2012. OK, blame the four-game sweep.

Well, in 2010, the Giants’ five-game victory over Texas delivered an 8.4, the second lowest in the last five years after 2012.

So what’s the over-under prediction for this year’s Series?

Anything less than six games seems certain to produce an all-time low rating. Bet the under at 7.6.

Fox and MLB really need this Series to go at least six games and probably seven to capture the casual sports fan. Even then, last year’s Boston-St. Louis match-up, which went six games featuring two storied franchises, only did a 8.9 rating.

The odds seem stacked against KC-SF producing a decent rating. But maybe Fox will get lucky, and will get a terrific World Series.