A Phillies-Rays World Series didn't figure to generate good TV ratings under the best of conditions, but Saturday's late night into early morning affair posted a particularly low number (off 28 percent from last year's third game between Boston and Colorado).

Unfortunately, the ratings seem to be worth no more than a shrug of the shoulders to baseball and Fox TV executives, even though what apparently was an exciting game went virtually unnoticed by most baseball fans, especially young ones.

Game 3 was scheduled to begin at 8:35 p.m. Saturday, already a recipe for ratings disaster. Rain delayed the first pitch until 10:06, the latest start in World Series history. The winning cross crossed the plate at 1:47 a.m. Sunday.

Fox analyst Tim McCarver said it was "one of the most thrilling ninth-inning finishes since Game 7 of the 2001 World Series" between the Yankees and Arizona, according to USA Today.

"For a baseball fan, this is what a World Series is all about," a baseball executive told that newspaper.

Well, isn't that nice. Perhaps he meant "for a baseball fan in the Mountain and Pacific time zones." For the rest of us, it was just another in a long line of lost World Series memories.

I don't much care who wins the Series, but maybe it would be a good idea for the Phillies to wrap it up tonight. Let's put what used to be the national pastime out of its misery.