TBS leaves viewers in dark

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- The NFL had "Heidi." Major League Baseball now has "The Steve Harvey Show."

At least for an inning or so.

Due to what was termed a "router failure" at TBS headquarters in Atlanta, viewers all across America were unable to see the start of tonight's pivotal affair between the Red Sox and Tampa Bay Rays in Game 6 of the American League Championship Series. Media outlets and cable providers were flooded with calls demanding an explanation as viewers expecting to see the Sox and Rays fight for a trip to the World Series instead stumbled upon the aforementioned network sitcom.

Apparently, nobody was laughing.

Though TBS repaired the problem late in the first inning, viewers missed the first six batters of the game. The game started at 8:08 p.m., but the broadcast didn't begin until 8:28 p.m. By that point, Tampa Bay already had claimed a 1-0 lead courtesy of a colossal, solo home run by Rays center fielder B.J. Upton that struck the "C-ring" catwalk in left center field.

After TBS issued an apology and fairly generic statement during the game, Turner Sports director of public relations Jeff Pomeroy briefly took questions from reporters during the sixth inning of play. Pomeroy said that TBS suffered a failure of both "the main router and the backup router," the latter of which exists exclusively for such instances where the primary source fails.

Said the network statement: "Two circuit breakers in our Atlanta transmission operations tripped causing the master router and its backup -- which are necessary to transmit any incoming feed outbound -- to shut down. This impacted our live feed from being distributed to any of the other networks in the Turner portfolio and caused the delay in our coverage. Both our primary and backup routers were impacted by this problem. We apologize to baseball fans for this mishap that caused a delay in our coverage."

According to Pomeroy, the failure of the routers was unprecedented and prevented TBS from broadcasting a live message of any kind, including an informational scrawl at the bottom of the screen. Pomeroy said the network had no choice but to put on taped programming, which resulted in "The Steve Harvey Show" at least temporarily ending up in the slot reserved for Game 6.

Pomeroy said the routers failed with about five minutes remaining in the pregame show, leaving TBS with little time to act.

"It's never happened before," Pomeroy said.

Thanks to the temporary blackout, the first significant play of the game actually witness by viewers was a 6-4-3 double-play groundout by Rays third baseman Evan Longoria that squelched a Tampa Bay rally and ended the bottom of the first.

At the Cask N Flagon outside Fenway Park, manager Mike Fusco said the hour -- from the pregame show until the game was restored -- "wasn't real fun."

"People were in a little uproar because they thought we didn't put the game on. They were just screaming at us to put it on and try all the other stations -- Fox, TNT," Fusco said.

Finally, Fusco said the staff had to use a PA system to explain the technical problems to the capacity crowd of 700. Some customers yelled for them to at least put the game on the radio, but the bar didn't have one.

"People watched 'Steve Harvey' until it came on," Fusco said.

Until last season, of course, TBS had not been involved in the broadcasting of postseason games. The network drew great criticism from fans and media last year for an assortment of issues pertaining to telecasts, ranging from the quality of announcers to technical matters.

Pomeroy said he had no knowledge of whether the TBS gaffe would allow MLB to opt out of its contract with TBS. MLB spokesperson Phyllis Merhige deferred all such questions to commissioner Bud Selig's office.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.