LOS ANGELES—I hate to keep pointing out all the mistakes that Major League Baseball makes compared to the other professional sports leagues but if the shoe fits…

I travelled home to Michigan this past week and while there is nothing like the fall season in the Great Lake State (especially if you don’t have to stay around for winter) I was surprised to find another faux pas in the unintentional comedy that is Major League Baseball.

Last Sunday night’s game four of the World Series was one of the most exciting and pivotal games of the series—especially the last inning—and do you know what time that last inning occurred?  Around 11:30 p.m. EST.  On a Sunday night.  The first day after moving the clocks back an hour.  So really everyone’s body was telling them it was 12:30 a.m.

For those of you who missed it, the Yankees’ Joba Chamberlain gave up a game-tying solo home run to Phillies’ third baseman Pedro Feliz in the bottom of the eighth and, in turn, gave the Phillies’ and their fanatics all the momentum to get back into the Series heading into the ninth inning.  Enter Phillies’ closer Brad Lidge in the top of the ninth and after getting the first two outs allowed Johnny Damon to reach first after a long battle at the plate.  No problem, two outs, runner on first and the struggling Mark Teixeira at the plate.  With the infield shifted way around to right and third baseman Feliz stationed in the normal shortstop position, Damon took off for second with Feliz covering. 

Damon swiped the bag easily and in what looked like a little league play actually turned out to be one of the most “heads-up” plays in World Series history.  Knowing that third base was left unoccupied by Feliz, Damon popped up out of his slide and, without hesitating, took off for third where he made it easily.  Now, with two outs this might not seem like a big deal – get Teixeira out and the innings over.  Except the announcers, Joe Buck and Tim McCarver, realized right away that this would take away Lidge’s out pitch, the biting slider in the dirt.  If Lidge bounces one past catcher Carlos Ruiz, Damon scores and the Yankees probably win with Mariano Rivera waiting in the bullpen.

Sure enough Lidge never threw one pitch below the thighs and after plunking Teixeira in the back, Alex Rodriguez, who is currently enjoying a Greg Norman/Chrissy Evert wave of good fortune with Kate Hudson, drilled a pitch into the left field corner to help the Yankees take a commanding 3-1 series lead.

What a great finish to the pivotal game in this year’s World Series and Major League Baseball and Fox expect the viewing public to stay up until midnight (on a Sunday) on the East Coast to see it?  When your sport’s popularity is somewhere between the NHL and soccer shouldn’t you make your product as accessible as you can?  This game should have ended somewhere around 9:30 or 10:00 like the Super Bowl does.  There I go again, comparing a successful sports league (the NFL) to a floundering one.