Too Bad I Was Sleeping

I want to open this post by saying I am not an early-to-bed kinda guy. On work nights I routinely go to bed after midnight, sometimes even later. If there is a big game on I will generally stay up to watch, even when my beloved Mets are on the west coast (I saw ALL their games against the Dodgers, including the extra inning Church-missed-the-bag debacle). So I am pretty committed to finishing up a late night game. But even I occasionally cant make it all the way through - and I bet I have a lot of company on this.

When Johnny Damon came up in the 9th last night and had his (and subsequently AROD's) defining moment as a Yankee I was already catching up on Zs. I watched the game up through the top of the 8th. It was already after 11 pm in New York, and due to the daylight savings change earlier yesterday morning it felt like it was after midnight. A long weekend of Halloween revelry (once again, I am pretty sure I wasn't along on this one) left me totally beat, so I went to sleep, and missed an ending for the ages.

My issue with this is, it didn't have to be this way. Sure, the game ran a bit long (3 hours, 25 minutes), but World Series games, on national television, with powerful and patient lineups ALWAYS run long. So then how is it possible that a game played on the east coast, in my timezone, managed to run past my formidable bedtime (and possibly WELL past the bedtime of most normal people)? The answer is simple, FOX Primetime. FOX chose to start this game around 8:20 pm. Due to the DST change this actually felt like 9:20 pm. The game ran almost to midnight, which felt like 1 AM! Had the game started right after football, say at 7:30 pm, I wouldn't have missed Damon's heroics.

I understand the football schedule left FOX with no option but to start late last night. But that excuse doesn't exist for any of the other World Series games, all of which have begun after 8pm. To ask viewers to stay up after midnight last night, and now come back again tonight and do it all over is a bit ridiculous. Live athletic events do not lend themselves to DVR technology - you really have to watch live. Baseball talks about being America's past-time, and a game of the youth of America. If that is so true then why routinely play games when most of east coast America and its youth aren't awake to see a dramatic two out, two strike comeback ending? The kind of ending that really would solidify that love of the game they are so desperately looking for.