TV station, and WJZ-TV, the Baltimore ABC station; and in Philadelphia by WTAF-TV, the Phillies' flagship TV station, and WPVI-TV, the Philadelphia ABC station. (This was the last year in which the participating teams' regular-season flagship TV stations were permitted to simulcast the network feed of the World Series even if they were not affiliated with that network. Beginning in 1984 the network affiliates would have Series exclusivity in every city.) This was the last World Series aired on ABC before the network was taken over by Capital Cities Communications (coincidentally, that company's flagship station was Philadelphia's ABC affiliate, WPVI-TV—also the network's first affiliate). Earl Weaver was ABC's lead baseball analyst in , but was also employed by the Baltimore Orioles as a consultant. At the time, ABC had a policy preventing an announcer who was employed by a team from working games involving that team. So whenever the Orioles were on the primary ABC game (ABC during this period, broadcast Monday night games), Weaver worked the backup game. This policy forced Weaver to resign from the Orioles' consulting position in October in order to be able to work the Series telecasts for ABC. The 1984 World Series was scheduled to start in the National League park. But Major League Baseball actually had a contingency plan to instead start the World Series in the American League park in the event that the Chicago Cubs won the National League Championship Series against the San Diego Padres. This would have allowed the Wrigley Field-hosted (i.e. daytime) games to be held over the weekend. In return, only one prime time game (Game 3 on Friday) would have been lost. Wrigley Field wouldn't have lights installed until four years later. In other words, had the Cubs advanced to the Series instead of the Padres, the Detroit Tigers would have hosted Games 1–2, and 6–7 (on Tuesday and Wednesday nights), while the Cubs would have hosted Games 3–5 (on Friday, Saturday and Sunday), with all three games in Chicago starting no later than 1:30 p.m. Central Time. marked the first time that all World Series games were aired in prime time. Since 1985 marked the first year of the League Championship Series having a best-of-seven format, Game 1 started on a Saturday. Tim McCarver (who was originally slated to be a roving World Series reporter) was practically a last minute replacement for Howard Cosell on