Was ESPN Trying to Screw with Fox's All-Star Game Ratings?

Baseball is a slow game to begin with but Fox Sports treatment of the All-Star game made it so slow that it would make Brideshead Revisited seem like a shoot 'em up - smash 'em up excitement thrill ride in comparison. It was 8:53 by the time the game started and by that time my interest had whithered and died on the vine.

And I'm a huge baseball fan!

Luckily for me I happened to notice on the channel guide that the WSOP episodes on ESPN were brand new 2007 episodes. I ended up watching those until 10:00 and just flipping back to the game during commercials. I don't think I really missed anything.

I have to wonder if ESPN scheduled the new WSOP episodes to screw with MLB and if MLB's recent decision to keep ESPN Baseball Tonight crew out of the All-Star game (because ESPN jumped the gun in announcing the All-Star line-ups when TBS had the rights to the announcement show).

I say this because the TV schedule was updated July 7th (almost a week after ESPN jumped the gun). But upon checking it looks like ESPN was just sticking to its original schedule for airing 2007 WSOP events. I still wonder if ESPN's programming choice played a role in why MLB was so upset with ESPN for the All-Star game announcement brouhaha.