An East-Coaster Laments the State of Baseball

The other day I wrote that Barack Obama was taking a chance by scheduling his infomercial at a time which would delay the start of the World Series, especially since both teams are from battleground states and both are in the Eastern time zone. Andy McCarthy at The Corner is also on the East Coast and is not a fan of the World Series schedule:

What is wrong with baseball? I have a 6-year-old who fell in love with the game this year. All he wanted to do was watch some of the World Series, which just f-i-n-a-l-l-y started a few minutes ago. It's a school night. I told him he could watch an inning, then I cut it to a batter, then, eventually, just the first pitch. Why? Because we sat through 15 minutes of commercials waiting for the game to start.

Baseball has allowed television to take over the post-season. I am a nut for the game, and I gave up in the fourth inning of Game 7 between the Rays and the Sox the other night — I couldn't stay awake through the extended commercial breaks between innings. A few years back, I gave up Monday Night Football for the same reason.

No more day games in the World Series, they don't start to play til after 830pm Eastern, and the games take 4 hours to play. If your team's not in it, who can watch that? What kids — y'know, the people the game has to hook if it's going to sustain its fat paydays — can stay up for that?

I finally got so aggravated, I turned it off. I'm a junkie, so of course I'll eventually turn it back on, but not tonight. And if they make me, a die-hard fan, feel that way, how can they possibly hold normal people who have plenty of other things they'd just as soon be doing?

I remember when there were no night games during the series and I hated missing games while at school. In 1969 I got lucky..sort of..and got the flu the week of the World Series. I was able to stay home and watch the Miracle Mets win that series against Baltimore. It was great.