The Reds' weekend series against the Philadelphia Phillies, which was scheduled to be played today through Sunday at Cinergy Field, has been rescheduled for the end of the season.

        The Reds will resume play at 7:05 p.m. Tuesday at Cinergy Field against the Chicago Cubs.

        Baseball commissioner Bud Selig announced Thursday afternoon that all games today through Sunday were postponed. They will be rescheduled — along with games of Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday — during the week of Monday, Oct.1. The regular season was to have ended Sunday, Sept.30.

        “The more I thought about it, I couldn't rationalize starting before Monday,” Selig told the Associated Press.

        Fans holding tickets to this weekend's Reds games at Cinergy Field against the Phillies may use those tickets for the rescheduled games, which will be played on dates to be announced in the near future, a Reds spokesperson said.

        The first indication that today's Reds-Phillies game might wind up being played as scheduled occurred in mid-afternoon Thursday when the AP reported that the Phillies had worked out Thursday at Turner Field in Atlanta and left at 1:30 p.m. in four buses bound for Cincinnati.

        But Selig ended that speculation when he announced the postponements at about 3:30 p.m.

        After hearing the news the games were off, the Phillies decided to continue to Cincinnati before heading home today.

        The only other team that already had left for the home of its weekend opponent was the Pittsburgh Pirates. They had left their ballpark in buses at 11:15 a.m. Thursday to travel to Chicago, where they were to play the Cubs.

        If MLB had resumed play today, after having postponed the Tuesday-through-Thursday games, it might have cast baseball in a bad light. Today is a national day of mourning. The NFL already had postponed its games Sunday, and most college football teams are not playing Saturday.

        Tuesday morning, four airplanes were hijacked and two of them crashed into the World Trade Center and one hit the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.

        Reds players, who bused back from Chicago to Cincinnati on Thursday, had stated a preference Wednesday for solidarity with the NFL and other professional sports.

        Making up the games will push the playoffs and World Series back a week. The postseason will have no impact on the already-out-of-it Reds, but the converse is not true. The Reds could have an impact on the postseason, because both the Phillies and Cubs are in contention for division championships and wild-card berths.

        As with many teams in baseball, the Reds' operational costs will rise due to the extension of the season. Example: The club already has incurred travel expenses for the four-game trip to Chicago earlier this week. Though the Reds played only one game there, they were in the hotel Sunday night through Wednesday night, while awaiting daily word on whether games would be played.

        “Any of those concerns are way down the list compared to reflecting on what's happened to America and the entire world,” Reds chief operations officer John Allen said. “Concerns (about costs and rescheduling) are not something we're dwelling on at all. They're miniscule compared to the overwhelming nature of what's transpired.”

        Selig said all players will wear American flags on their uniforms for the remainder of the season and that flags will be distributed to fans at Monday's games. The Reds already had planned to pass out flags tonight.

        The Reds will work out at noon Saturday at Cinergy Field.
        The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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