If you are a Phillies fan, you were probably awake for this moment. Rays fans, too, as painful as it was.
If you live on the West Coast or in the Mountain time zone you were probably awake for this moment. It happened in the eighth inning of Game 2.
If you work, say, a noon-to-8 shift (in my mind, the best work shift in the world), then you were probably awake for this moment. It happened in the fourth inning.For the rest of us, we've been screwed when it comes to World Series starting times. Game 3 last year, for me, was the last straw, starting at 10:06 p.m. and ending at 1:47 a.m.
But finally, FINALLY, major league baseball and Fox have had the good sense to move back the start times on World Series games from 8:30-whatever-it's-been for the past few years to 7:57 p.m. They announced the new times yesterday, effective with the 2009 World Series. And to that, I say, what on earth took you so long?
Of course, this is only happening because ratings for last year's World Series were the worst ever. Personally, I don't think they're going back far enough. Pushing the game time back a half hour is probably going to get one more inning in, at the most. (So kids will go to bed now during the fifth inning instead of the fourth inning). But at least it's a start. Apparently, weekend games could start even earlier than 8 p.m., which is great. Heck, play the weekend games in the afternoon, like they did forever. I love that I have memories of some World Series games being at night and some during the date.
Some of you may wonder why I, a lover of night games, would have a problem with the Series start times. After all, I will be staying up to watch the Mets-Dodgers game that begins at 10 p.m., my time, tonight (what a wonderful gift the Mets gave the Dodgers last night).
But I love it because I put out my newspaper's sports section at work and dealing with the lateness of World Series games is an annual fiasco. There is no "big event" in sports that runs so late on a consistent basis, other than the college football championship game, than the World Series. If you could see how much stress and conflict at work is caused by the lateness of games, you would know what I'm saying.
We east coast guys have it rough when it comes to this. I often wonder what it would be like putting out a sports section living on the west coast when games start at 5 p.m. and end a little after 8. What a wonderful world that would be.
So, when I saw this news about Fox last night, I knew that the switch was not intended to help east coast newspapers (nobody thinks about newspapers anymore). But I appreciated it all the same. And maybe, a few more kids will get to stay up one more inning.
Finally, a sane decision from the folks who run MLB and TV programming. It's a start anyway.
Comments
but thats what it took for MLB to move the games to a more reasonable time. they need to speed up the games too.
a bit of irony is that had gm 5 started at normal 7p time it may have been finished before it rained.
mind you, I miss world series day games....
I view it more from how miserable late starts make my work life. I suppose everyone could just DVR/TiVO everything. But that takes some of the fun out of it.