Rams Cede Spotlight to World Series LOUIS - The Seattle Seahawks offense was huddling, and the St. Louis Rams defense was waiting, hands on hips, when the crowd at Edward Jones Dome roared on Monday as loud as it had all night. The Jumbotron showed Matt Holliday rounding the bases after hitting a home run in Game 5 of the World Series, which was being played less than a mile away at Busch Stadium. This is a baseball town, first and foremost - that's what most people from St. Louis say. It seemed unfortunate for the Rams that their first home game on "Monday Night Football" since 2006 would coincide with a World Series game that involved the hometown Cardinals. Football had lost its chance to take precedence in this city after all. Once the National League lost to the American League in the All-Star Game, costing the Series" N.L. representative home-field advantage, Kevin Demoff, the Rams" chief coordinating officer, was aware of a potential overlap. Six weeks ago, he started planning for this night in case the Cardinals reached the Series. "Our focus was to make sure anybody that chose to come here wouldn't miss anything that was going on at Busch Stadium," Demoff said. He sent an email to season-ticket holders to assure them as much: the Cardinals game would be on TVs throughout the stadium and on the Jumbotron during the Rams" pregame and halftime; highlights would be showed on the main video screens; and the score of the World Series would fill a spot where out-of-town N.F.L. scores are displayed. As it was, the Rams struggled to fill their stadium, coming into Monday having drawn the second-fewest fans in the league - ahead of only the Oakland Raiders - with an average crowd of 55,395 at the 66,000-capacity stadium. As the game started Monday, empty seats were visible in the lower bowl of Edward Jones Dome, and the upper decks appeared half full at best. Many people had gathered around TVs in the concourses to watch the Cardinals. The team announced the crowd at 55,966. For those who did stay, they saw the Rams drive the length of the field only to be stopped on fourth-and-goal when a pass fell incomplete and the Seahawks held on for a 14-9 win. "People plan their lives around what's going on down at this park," Joe Buck, who grew up in St. Louis, said during his pregame baseball broadcast for Fox, which is showing the Series. He added, "Even if the Rams were rolling right now, it would still tip toward the Cardinals." And the Rams were certainly not rolling. They came into Monday's game with a 3-4 record, and were without starting quarterback Sam Bradford, who is out for the season with a knee injury. Glenn Streibig, 80, and his son, Dave, 56, sat on a couch in a lounge on the club level, in front of three big-screen TVs, one showing the Cardinals game. "We grabbed it early," Dave Streibig said of their spot, "and we haven't given it up."