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ST. LOUIS – The St. Louis Cardinals and the New York Mets will play game five of the National League Championship Series tonight in St. Louis, with the series tied at two wins apiece. Tom Glavine (15-7) is to start for the Mets, with Jeff Weaver (5-4) pitching for the Cardinals in a matchup of Game 1 starters. Both would be pitching on three days’ rest, but rain is possible.”
Last night, Carlos Delgado and the rest of the Mets broke out their big bats just in time, ravaging the Cardinals’ bullpen to make sure the NL championship series will end back in New York. Delgado put New York ahead with a three-run homer, then busted open the game with a two-run double, leading the Mets to a record-setting 12-5 win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Sunday night that tied the best-of-seven series at two games apiece.

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ST. LOUIS — Led by Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran, the Mets broke out of their offensive slumber in a big way Sunday night, powering four homers in a 12-5 Game 4 rout of the Cardinals at Busch Stadium that evened the National League Championship Series at two games apiece.Southpaw Oliver Perez, working 5 2/3 innings, was the beneficiary of a Mets eruption that featured five RBIs by Delgado, who homered for the third time in the series, and a pair of solo homers by Beltran, giving him three in the series.

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N.L.C.S. Game 3 – Cardinals 5, Mets 0

ST. LOUIS, Oct. 14 — The ball stayed aloft for several seconds after smacking off Steve Trachsel’s thigh, and in the time it took to plummet to the outfield grass, another injury had placed even more stress on the Mets’ already strained pitching staff.

DETROIT (AP) — Magglio Ordonez lofted a high fly ball to left field and when it landed, a most amazing thing: the Detroit Tigers in the World Series!

Written off by the entire baseball world only three years ago, the Tigers made it official Saturday. They’re back, and on the prowl.

Ordonez hit his second homer of the game, connecting for a three-run shot with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning that lifted Jim Leyland’s Tigers over the Oakland Athletics 6-3 for a four-game sweep of the AL championship series.

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SAN BENITO, Texas (AP) — Freddy Fender, the “Bebop Kid” of the Texas-Mexico border who later turned his twangy tenor into the smash country ballad “Before the Next Teardrop Falls,” died Saturday. He was 69.

Fender, who was diagnosed with lung cancer in early 2006, died at noon at his Corpus Christi home with his family at his bedside, said Ron Rogers, a family spokesman.

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DETROIT (AP) — Fox baseball broadcaster Steve Lyons has been fired for making a racially insensitive comment directed at colleague Lou Piniella’s Hispanic heritage on the air during Game 3 of the American League championship series.

The network confirmed Saturday that Lyons was dismissed after Friday’s comments. He has been replaced for the remainder of the series by Los Angeles Angels announcer Jose Mota.

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NEW YORK (AP) — So Taguchi laughed, and it felt so good.

“I can’t explain. It’s unbelievable,” he said. “Who expected that I would hit a home run? Maybe nobody. Even me.”

No power threat during the regular season, Taguchi is a playoff slugger now — and St. Louis is heading to Busch Stadium tied with the New York Mets in the NL championship series.

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DETROIT (AP) — From the very first day of spring training, Jim Leyland demanded that his Detroit Tigers walk with the swagger of World Series champions.

One more win, and this once-lost franchise will get a chance to play for that golden trophy.

Kenny Rogers pitched the game of his life for the second straight week while the Tigers backed him with their bats, gloves and legs, beating the Oakland Athletics 3-0 on a frosty Friday to take a 3-0 lead in the AL championship series.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Legs McNeil remembers the night back in 1975 when he walked into the dingy storefront club perched in the even dingier Bowery neighborhood. The band onstage, four guys in leather jackets and torn jeans, was the Ramones. McNeil sat at a nearby table, watching their set with Lou Reed.

It was unforgettable. But as McNeil would soon discover, it was just a typical night at CBGB’s, the club that spawned punk rock while launching the careers of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees Blondie, the Talking Heads and the Ramones.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Fixed-wing planes have been banned from the East River corridor in New York unless the pilot is in contact with air traffic control, the Federal Aviation Administration said Friday.

The announcement comes two days after after a plane carrying New York Yankees pitcher Cory Lidle above the East River slammed into a skyscraper.

The new ban will affect small aircraft, but not helicopters, that previously have been allowed to fly along the river, which runs along the east side of Manhattan Island.

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RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — Shares of Red Hat Inc., the largest distributor of the Linux operating system, tumbled more than 7 percent Friday after a Wall Street analyst suggested that Oracle Corp. may soon introduce its own Linux products.

Red Hat’s stock finished the day at $19.90, a decline of $1.59, after briefly falling below its 52-week low to $19.71 on the Nasdaq Stock Market.

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SPRING, Texas (AP) — Arnold Palmer tearfully said it was time to stop playing competitive golf after withdrawing from a Champions Tour event early in the first round.

The 77-year-old Palmer hit two balls into the water on the fourth hole Friday, then said he was withdrawing because of a sore lower back. He continued playing with his threesome of Lee Trevino and John Mahaffey but did not keep score the rest of the round.

Palmer was making only his second appearance on the 50-and-over tour this season in the Administaff Small Business Classic. He remained with the group after withdrawing to entertain the gallery following him at Augusta Pines Golf Course.

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NEW YORK (AP) — Air America Radio, a liberal talk and news radio network, has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, a network official told the AP.

The network had denied rumors just a month ago that it would file for bankruptcy, but on Friday Air America said negotiations with a creditor from the company’s early days had broken down.

The network will stay on the air while it resolves issues with its creditors, spokeswoman Jaime Horn told the Associated Press. A formal announcement was expected to be made later Friday.

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BUFFALO, New York (AP) — A rare early October snowstorm left parts of the Great Lakes and Midwest blanketed with 2 feet of snow Friday morning, prompting widespread blackouts, closing schools and halting traffic.

By early Friday, 14 inches of snow had been recorded at the Buffalo Niagara International Airport, with reports of 2 feet elsewhere, said Tom Paone, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. The snowfall was expected to continue throughout the morning, he said.

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