The schedule has been a bit crazy, and I haven’t had the chance to watch as much of the World Series as I normally do.

So with nothing on the agenda last night, I settled into the couch to watch Game 6. Nothing like a World Series in the late stages, right?

Well, after the Kansas City smacked around former White Sox pitcher Jake Peavy for seven runs in the second, I was out for the night. I switched to ESPN’s excellent 30 for 30 on Brian Bosworth.

Other viewers did a similar tuneout. The overnight rating of 8.9 likely would have cracked double-digit with a better game.

Another lopsided game was the worst thing that could have happened for MLB and Fox. With the exception of Kansas City’s 3-2 win in Game 3, this series has been a major snooze. The average score for the six games has been 7-1.5. The combined score in the last three games is 26-4, with both teams being shut out.

Little wonder why nobody is watching.

My colleague, Paul Sullivan of Chicago Tribune, addressed the situation in his column today, calling it “bleak.” Citing the pace of play plague, Sullivan wrote it took nearly two hours to play four innings on Tuesday.

His story included this passage:

“There’s a lot going on at this time of year,” Giants general manager Brian Sabean said. “All the other sports are starting, or have started, and in some areas of the country (the competition is) college football.

“Baseball is not the American sport. Football is, and especially pro football, which is followed by some family member in everybody’s family. But that has evolved over time. It really has nothing to do with the World Series.”

Yes, there is a ton on competition this time of year. But it wasn’t that long ago when the World Series was considered such a force, the NFL wouldn’t schedule a Sunday night game against it.

As I have repeatedly written, the World Series ratings decline is a relatively recent trend occurring within the last 10 years. The White Sox four-game sweep over Houston in 2005 did an 11.1 rating.

Now Fox won’t even come close to a 9 rating for a seven-game series.

Baseball and Fox desperately need a dramatic game tonight. Something on the order of a Bill Mazeroksi  finish would help change the narrative and get people talking about baseball. At least for a day or two.

It absolutely can’t have another blowout. That would make it the least memorable seven-game World Series of all time.

It’s not easy being a White Sox fan. They go to the World Series about once every two generations. And they are much better known for the Series they threw (1919) than the recent one they won (2005).

So as a long suffering fan, it was exciting to learn of rare footage being found of the White Sox winning the 1917 World Series, two years before they became forever known as the Black Sox.

1917 NY Giants – NL Pennant winners from Bill Morrison on Vimeo.

Richard Sandomir of the New York Times reports that rare film has been discovered of the 1917 World Series between the White Sox and New York Giants. And in of all places, a small town in Canada’s Yukon Territory.

Sandomir reports that Bill Morrison, a White Sox who lives in San Francisco, found the films at the Library and Archives Canada in Gatineau, Quebec.

They came from Dawson City, a small town in Canada’s Yukon Territory, south of the Arctic Circle. “Films would come up there and it was too expensive to send them back,” Morrison said. “Everyone understood they were nitrate and were dangerous; some got thrown in the river, some got burned, and some ended up in the local library.”

Previously, Morrison found rare films of the 1919 World Series in the same library. The 1917 films show the White Sox before they went dirty.

Sandomir writes:

“The footage is in two segments. The first includes snippets from Games 1 and 2 at Comiskey Park, which was draped in postseason bunting. Players milled outside their dugouts. Giants Manager John McGraw and White Sox Manager Pants Rowland met with the umpires. Some of the action — shot from faraway angles long before Fox’s cameras could show lint on a pitcher’s nose — showed moments like the Giants’ Walter Holke being picked off first base and the White Sox’ Happy Felsch rounding the bases after a home run.

“The second segment is a series of “close-ups” of Giants filmed at the Polo Grounds. McGraw looked grimly at the camera and doffed his cap. Pitcher Ferdie Schupp was described on-screen as “the best twirler in the game;” right fielder Dave Robertson was said to “cover as much territory as a three-ring circus;” and the multisport star Jim Thorpe was introduced as the “Indian all-’round world champ.”

“Thorpe was in the starting lineup in right field for Game 5, but McGraw removed him in the first inning for a pinch-hitter.”

Definitely one of the most unique characters from the 80s.

Here is the trailer for tonight’s film on ESPN at 9 p.m. ET.

Mel Bracht of The Oklahoman had an interview with the film’s producer Thaddeus Matula:

“Brian and The Boz” describes Bosworth’s strained relationship with his demanding father, Foster, which led to insecurity.

“When I got to meet Brian, it was immediately apparent to me that there was trauma in his childhood that he was trying to escape from and he created this mask that allowed him to act without consequence when really the Brian inside was frozen,” Matula said.

“He couldn’t act in any situation because he was frozen in that sort of ‘Am I good enough? Who am I? state.’ Much like an alcoholic turns into a completely different person without any consequences, The Boz was this out-of-control thing. He started to do things that Brian was ashamed of, but he couldn’t get away from it because it’s what the people wanted. And his career ended so suddenly, he never had the opportunity to sort of figure it out while he was still playing and mend those fences.”

Michael Bradley, my fellow columnist at the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana, has a good column regarding allegations that ESPN now is biased toward the SEC since it is running the new SEC Network.

Bradley knocks down that theory, detailing ESPN’s true bias.

ESPN’s more insidious influence comes when it promotes itself and its programming under the guise of presenting news. One had only to watch the SportsCenter that ran after Monday’s Washington-Dallas game to see that in action. It was bad enough that the network chose to provide World Series coverage a full half-hour into the show (ESPN doesn’t broadcast baseball’s signature event) or that it promoted Friday’s Lakers-Clippers NBA game (10:30 Eastern on ESPN) with meaningless Kobe Bryant interview footage before any World Series mention. That’s standard procedure for ESPN, which uses SportsCenter as an hours-long infomercial for its programming and to promote its broadcast partners. (The second story, after the Monday Night Football recap, was that the Jets would start Michael Vick at QB Sunday, as if anybody outside of Gotham – or inside of it, at this point – cares at all.)

My latest column for the National Sports Journalism Center at Indiana is on the New York Times realizing people don’t watch as much baseball as they did in the past.

This tweet from Sports Media Watch is yet another example of the negative narrative during the World Series.

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Poor baseball. Every year, the focus is on how the ratings continue to slide for the World Series, hitting historic lows. It’s an October tradition, like Halloween.

It also is getting to point of excess. The relentless attacks (present company included) are starting to feel like Jimmy Johnson and Miami running up the score in Gerry Faust’s last game at Notre Dame.

Enough already, right?

Yet there was a significant low point for baseball on Friday. The New York Times ran a front page story   with the headline, “Series is on, and everybody’s watching…Football.” And then there was this subhead: “World Series 2014: Baseball is no longer the center of attention in a new landscape.”

Stop the presses! Get me rewrite!

OK, so maybe the Times A section is a bit late to the party. What’s coming next on the Times front: A story on some neat things being invented by Apple? After all, the Times’ sports business and media guru Richard Sandomir has been reporting on this trend for years in sports.

However, the placement (above the fold, no less) and tone of the Times story can’t be dismissed. It isn’t just football over baseball. Consider this passage from writers Jonathan Mahler and Bill Carter, two of the Times’ heavyweights:

“Perhaps the most compelling statement about baseball’s relative standing among American sports fans is this: Last summer’s World Cup match between the United States and Portugal drew 25 million viewers, roughly double that of the World Series opener.”

Baseball is behind soccer, too? That line probably hurt Bud Selig more than getting hit by a Yordano Ventura fastball.

While virtually everything has changed in the new media landscape, The New York Times still is considered the paper of record in many important places, namely for high-level decision-makers in Manhattan who decide where they are going to spend their corporate dollars. You can be sure nobody at MLB was poo-pooing the Times Friday. The last thing baseball wanted to see was a front-page story in the Times pointing out that fewer viewers are tuning into the World Series.

The news didn’t get much better Monday with reports that San Francisco’s important victory over Kansas City Sunday produced only an 8.2 overnight rating, the lowest ever for a Game 5. NBC Sports’ PR department piled on with a tweet that noted its 11.4 rating for the New Orleans-Green Bay game was 39 percent higher in the head-to-head competition.

Then again, nobody should have been surprised since the Times told us everyone is watching football.

Given: The World Series’ appeal is a long way from the days of Sandy Koufax and Mickey Mantle in the ’60s when baseball ruled over football, not to mention the early days of Derek Jeter when the games still pulled ratings in the high teens, even low 20s during the ’90s.

Now here’s the question: Can baseball change the narrative?

Having its biggest stars in the World Series definitely would help. Although Kansas City is a good story, there’s no George Brett on these Royals. Meanwhile, the Giants might be the dullest dynasty in the history of sports.

Baseball would have been better served if young phenoms like Mike Trout and Bryce Harper had made the Series this year. Throw in some Clayton Kershaw, this generation’s Koufax, and you’d get higher ratings for these games. Unfortunately for the Dodgers and MLB, Kershaw rolled two unlucky 7s in the first round.

At some point, MLB needs to get lucky with some long Series runs by compelling superstars, much like Mantle and the Yankees, Reggie Jackson with the A’s and Yankees, and Jeter and the Yankees.

MLB can’t dictate whether their stars play late into October, but there is something they can control. Veteran readers of this column know exactly where this is going.

One, two, three, everyone: PACE OF PLAY!

Not to beat this dead horse again, but Game 4 on Saturday went exactly four hours. Even Madison Bumgartner’s brilliant pitching couldn’t prevent the Giants’ 5-0 win in Game 5 from coming in at 3:09. It was tedious, given that the Royals barely reached base.

Clearly, the slow play is turning off younger fans. Austin Karp of Sports Business Daily has the most damning stat for baseball: The average age for World Series viewers has gone from 48.4 in 2004 to 54.2 in 2013. It is incumbent on baseball to reverse that trend.

Baseball needs to figure out a way to bring in these World Series games at 2:30-2:45. And they need to move at a brisk pace. Stop the pitcher-catcher conferences on the mound, which merely serve as a prompt for the viewer to switch to “The Good Wife” on CBS.

Would a quicker game mean higher ratings for the World Series? Perhaps. It would be great to find out. At least the games would be more watchable.

At this point, Selig might have a better chance of hitting a Ventura fastball than baseball has reversing the negative PR. Faster games, though, would be a start. They might give the Times reason to do a follow-up next year.

It looks like Brandon Marshall will have some talking points for this week’s edition of “Inside The NFL” on Showtime.

An offshoot of the Bears skid had Marshall coming under fire Sunday morning on NFL Network for traveling on Tuesdays, his off-day, to work as an analyst on the show.

Former San Francisco and Detroit coach Steve Mariucci thinks the Bears receiver needs to do something else on Tuesdays–like rest.

“As his head coach before the season started, I would have sat him down and gave my expectations for him,” Mariucci said. “I would address the Inside the NFL obligation. First of all, he’s very good at it; he’s going to be doing this when he’s done. I would say Tuesdays are for a couple things. Number one, it’s a rest day; travel is not restful, it’s difficult. And the other reason is for treatment. If you’re hurt, you have a knee injury, I need you in the training room getting treatment – mandatory treatment. I would try to discourage him from those obligations.”

Later in the morning, Kurt Warner and Michael Irvin debated the Marshall issue in a “Players Only” segment. Note: Irvin occasionally appears on “Inside The NFL” with Marshall.

Warner opened the discussion: “The bigger issue here I believe is he goes into the locker room and he calls people out or calls the team out and says this is unacceptable. And then you know what everybody is going to say; ‘He’s going to get on a plane and fly to New York and do his TV show.’ You’re going to go, ‘If this is a team issue, why aren’t you here on our days off? Why aren’t we meeting together? Why aren’t we figuring out what we need to do to fix this problem?’ You have to make the team first right?”

More from Warner: “This is unacceptable. So if it’s unacceptable, do we continue to do what we’ve been doing to make it unacceptable? Or do we have to step up and go I have to do something different. I’m a quarterback – I have to spend more time in the meeting room, I have to get together with my guys. I have to figure out what I’m doing wrong and address it as opposed to going, ‘I’m playing well enough so you guys all address it and you guys get better and I’ll show up on Sunday and do what I’ve been doing.’”

Irvin: “What we’re saying here is when you’re losing, I don’t care how you’re playing we have to now start getting into your off time. His off time is when he travels. So I stop doing the show and now I’m home and we’re still losing. Sooner or later you’re going to say I can’t sleep at home with my family on Thursday, Friday or Saturday night. What else do you take from a person?”

Warner: “The bottom line for me is I have no problem what anybody does on their off time. Go do your commercials, go do your TV show, but he’s the one that called them out. He’s the one that made the issue that what we’re doing right now is unacceptable. If you say it’s unacceptable, you have to be the first one to change. That’s what leaders do. We don’t say it’s unacceptable, you guys go change; I’m good, you guys go change because this unacceptable. Leaders step up and make a change and do something.”

Here is the video of the segment.

And it wasn’t even close. In fact, this was like Alabama playing Western Carolina.

NBC, though, couldn’t resist noting the healthy margin of victory.

However, not so fast NBC. John Ourand of Sports Business Daily reported the World Series did impact NBC’s rating for the New Orleans-Green Bay game.

Gee, wonder if Ourand’s source works at a network that has an interest in October baseball….?

Anyway, it hardly comes as a surprise that SNF trounced the World Series. In some cities, it really was bad. Take for instance, my town, Chicago.

Locally, the football game did a 12.2 compared to a meager 4.7 for the World Series. OK, some of it had to do with the regional interest in the Packers, although many Bears fans are in full bail-mode after the disaster in New England. But a 4.7 for a World Series game in a two-team baseball town is ridiculously low.

Meanwhile, in Dallas, Barry Horn of the Dallas Morning News had this:

All five NFL games broadcast locally topped Game 5 of the World Series.

New Orleans 44, Green Bay 23, Channel 5 @7:30 p.m. — 14.1

Seattle 13, Carolina 9, Channel 4 @noon — 14.0

Arizona 24, Philadelphia 20, Channel 4 @3 p.m. — 11.8

Pittsburgh 51, Indianapolis 24, Channel 11 @3:25 p.m. — 7.0

Detroit 22, Atlanta 21, Channel 4 @8:30 a.m. — 6.6

WS: San Francisco 5, Kansas City 0, Channel 4 @7 p.m. — 6.2

Yes, Dallas is a football town. However, it is worth noting Dallas still had a better rating for the World Series than Chicago.

In case you haven’t noticed, you can watch an actual NFL game with your breakfast on Sunday morning. Fox is airing the Detroit-Atlanta game from London coast-to-coast at 9:30 ET.

That means you can consume your blessed NFL for 14-plus hours on Sunday. Thank you, London time zone.

Now it is coming into focus. This is all part of the NFL’s grand plan about playing overseas. Besides developing an entirely new market for football in Europe, the league also could create a new lucrative Sunday morning TV window in the U.S.

Ca-ching, ca-ching. Let’s start the bidding at $300 million.

It makes perfect sense. Who wouldn’t want to watch more football on Sunday? It takes the notion of beer for breakfast to an entirely new level.

Peter King of MMQB wrote about Sunday’s breakfast special.

Not only is the NFL watching closely, but also FOX and CBS. Sunday morning is a potential fourth Sunday window, and you can be sure if viewers flock to this game that at least one game a year from London will start at this insane hour. (Worth mentioning that our left coast friends don’t think it’s insane; those in the Pacific time zone see games at 10 a.m. all season.) But the NFL is eyeing the massive TV audience east of the Mississippi—about 76 percent of all televisions in the United States are in the Eastern and Central time zones—to see if it has an appetite for an early game.

Now there’s still the challenge of how the NFL is going to figure out the London/Europe thing. Jenny Vrentas of MMQB wrote this week:

But what is the endgame for the NFL in London? The two most-talked about scenarios are permanently moving a current franchise across the Atlantic, or expanding the International Series to as many as eight games, in essence giving London a full home schedule with different teams each week. But neither is a perfect solution.

Vrentas then floated this idea.

The regular season should be a 19-week, 17-game schedule, with each team having eight home games, eight away games, two bye weeks and one neutral-site game. The neutral-site games would be like the preseason American Bowls the NFL held around the world from 1986 to 2005—in London, Dublin, Canada, Germany, Spain, Mexico, Japan and Australia—except these would be bona fide regular-season products. The league could even hold games in U.S. states that don’t have a franchise, such as Alabama or Hawaii. Even a certain metropolis in Southern California could host an NFL game.

It sounds different, it sounds farfetched, but it’s actually not. Not to the NFL. I spoke to people in the league office this week and floated the idea. Definitely something to be studied, I was told. Like all major corporations, the NFL models and projects every potential way to grow its business. There are a few major hurdles, of course: The schedule would have to be significantly reorganized, and both owners and players would have to agree to the terms—and we all know the players have adamantly opposed expanding the regular season beyond 16 games.

Eventually, there will be a solution. One thing is for sure: There will be many more Sunday morning NFL games on your breakfast menu in the future.