ABC's coverage. Cosell was removed from the telecasts on the eve of the World Series (October 18), by order of Jim Spence and Roone Arledge (the then Vice President and President of ABC Sports respectively) after the excerpts from Cosell's book (I Never Played the Game), which criticized colleagues at ABC, first appeared in TV Guide. 1986 – NBC preceded its broadcast of Game 5 by airing an episode of The Cosby Show (at the time the network's top-rated prime time series) in lieu of a pregame show. Vin Scully's call of the final play in Game 6 would quickly become an iconic one to baseball fans, with the normally calm Scully growing increasingly excited: Scully then remained silent for more than three minutes, letting the pictures and the crowd noise tell the story. Scully resumed with: Game 6 caused the first-ever preemption of Saturday Night Live, due to extra innings. Ron Darling explained that when the Mets entered the locker room, they were informed to their dismay that they'd inadvertently caused the first delay in SNLs (then) 11-year history; the delayed episode was aired two weeks later on November 8. NBC's broadcast of Game 7 (which went up against a Monday Night Football game between the Washington Redskins and New York Giants on ABC) garnered a Nielsen rating of 38.9 and a 55 share, making it the highest-rated single World Series game to date. Game 7 was scheduled for Sunday, but a rain-out forced the game to Monday. Game 6 of the 1987 World Series (played on Saturday, October 24) was the last World Series game to not be played in prime time (ironically, the game was played in the Metrodome even though it took place under artificial illumination all the same). The game started at 4 p.m. Eastern Time. Another weekend afternoon sixth game was planned for , but since the World Series ended in five games, it was unnecessary. The 1988 World Series marked the last time that NBC would televise a World Series for seven years. Beginning in , NBC was shut out of Major League Baseball coverage completely, after CBS signed a four-year, exclusive television contract. After splitting coverage of the 1995 World Series with ABC, NBC would next cover a World Series exclusively in 1997. Longtime Los Angeles Dodgers' broadcaster Vin Scully called the 1988 World Series for a national television audience on NBC