Bizarre

"We have met the enemy and he is us." So said Walt Kelly's Pogo in a 1970 Earth Day poster. Last night, a Friday night, the New York Yankees played the New York Mets. The fact that it was Friday is important because although consumers have historically opposed pay television, consumers can be made to desire that which they oppose if their attention is cleverly deflected from the truth. With the exception of most Friday night games and an occasional Saturday afternoon, all Yankees' games are on pay television. With the exception of weekends, all Mets' games are on pay television.

The year is 1951. The New York Yankees' home games are televised on WPIX, channel 11. Many are simultaneously telecast on WABD, channel 5. When the Yankees are on the road, New York Giants home games are telecast on WPIX. There is no conflict because the teams are never at home at the same time. The Brooklyn Dodgers' home games are televised on WOR, channel 9. When Brooklyn plays New York (it is not necessary to indicate WHICH New York team played Brooklyn during the season since it would be almost one half a century before the league's would lose their identity to interleague play), both WPIX and WOR televised the game.

In 1957, a greedy business person named Mr. O'Malley ended the Brooklyn National League franchise when he started the Los Angeles National League franchise. Giants' owner Horace Stoneham took his team to San Francisco because the National League needed two teams on the west coast to ease travel expenses. The Yankees remained alone until the National League expanded in 1962, creating the Houston Colt .45s and the New York Mets.

The National League Mets' games were televised on WOR, channel 9, just as the Brooklyn games had been carried by WOR. The National League and the Mets were identified with Channel 9. The Yankees were always on WPIX, channel 11. Then things changed, as they always do, and a few brief years ago, the Yankees' games returned to channel 5 for the first time in almost fifty years, which opened up WPIX. The Mets left channel 9 for WPIX.

This is the age of conglomerates. Channel 5, which is WNYW, is owned by the same group that owns channel 9. The Yankees '"free" television broadcasts (the only cost is time spent watching or attempting to avoid commercials that want individuals to recommend to their health care professional which drugs to prescribe or that show how great anticipating sexual activity can make one feel) were moved from the conglomerate's channel 5 to channel 2 and then to channel 9.

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