Detroit – National pastime, past your bedtime. That’s the mushrooming complaint about the World Series since the first night game was played Oct. 13, 1971, in Three Rivers Stadium.
Pittsburgh won – 4-3 over Baltimore- but little kids everywhere lost.
There hasn’t been a game played entirely in daylight since Game 6 of the 1987 World Series. And, of course, it unfolded under the shade of the Minnesota Twins’ Metrodome.
“I would like to see another World Series game played in the daytime,” commissioner Bud Selig said recently.
At issue now isn’t the time, but the date. If it seems the World Series is starting later, it’s because it is. And it figures only to get worse with the MLB’s new TV deal.
Beginning in 2007, the World Series will begin on Tuesday night instead of Saturday, leaving a November Game 7 a possibility.
The average dates of the previous 49 World Series entering Saturday? They started Oct. 13 and ended Oct. 20. The addition of the first-round division series in 1995 moved the start of the World Series back to the final full week in October.
The latest Game 1 occurred in the 2001 Series (Oct. 27). And Derek Jeter was crowned the first Mr. November when he hit a game-winning home run off of then-Arizona Diamondback Byung-Hyun Kim as Game 4 bled past midnight Oct. 31.
The pause in the schedule that occurred because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks pushed the playoffs back.
The 2001 Series between the Diamondbacks and the Yankees finished up on Nov. 4.
