Like so many things in baseball over the past decade, the national curiosity surrounding Manny Ramirez‘ return from a 50-game suspension appears to have been purely artificial.
Regional MLB coverage, featuring live, national cutaways to Dodgers/Padres during Ramirez’ first at-bat, drew a mere 1.7 overnight rating on FOX Saturday afternoon, down a whopping 50% from a 3.4 for coverage on the comparable date last year.
Keep in mind that Saturday was the Fourth of July. The last time FOX aired MLB coverage on the holiday (1998), the net drew a 4.2/12 overnight.
This will more than likely mark the 8th time in 10 weeks that MLB coverage on FOX has failed to draw even 2% of U.S. television households.
Updated 7/18/09 to correct MLB data.
