ST. LOUIS -- Commissioner Bud Selig has apologized to St. Louis Cardinals fans for a late playoff start time this week, and vowed it won't happen again.

The Cardinals opened the NL division series at Arizona on Tuesday night. The game began after 11 p.m. ET, making it hard for many local fans to stay up to watch.

"To say I'm sorry is the understatement of the year,'' Selig told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Friday. "You can't imagine how badly I feel. The team fights all year to get into first place and this was not good.''

The game started so late because the television networks that show the playoffs, along with baseball officials, do not want to have two games going on at the same time.

There were three games Tuesday, and two of them were played out West, complicating the broadcast schedule.

"Our people had poured over this for hundreds of hours with the networks,'' Selig said. "It's a very tough situation, one where you're damned if you do and damned if you don't.''

Selig, however, said he has ordered that there will be no more repeat performances.

"I told our people, 'No more 10 p.m. starts,''' Selig said. "That's the end of it.''