Fox Preempts ‘King’ for Record Chase

NEW YORK — Mark McGwire’s attempt to become the single-season home run king will preempt the season premiere of Fox’s hit show “King of the Hill.”

Fox will show tonight’s game between the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs at 5 p.m. The network’s prime-time entertainment programming--”King of the Hill,” “Costello” and “Guinness World Records: Primetime”--will be preempted.

There is precedent for a network to preempt prime-time coverage to show record-breaking baseball events. NBC showed Hank Aaron’s 715th home run in prime-time and broke into its coverage to show Pete Rose’s at-bats as he neared Ty Cobb’s career hits record.

ESPN will show the Cardinal-Red game on Wednesday night. If McGwire hasn’t homered by Thursday, Fox will show the final game of that two-game series. Otherwise, the game will be on Fox Sports Net.