The World Series starts on Wednesday, October 28th. That means if the Yankees win tonight to clinch the AL Pennant, there will be no baseball for 6 days. That's just ridiculous. If by a miracle the Angels can send this series to 7 games, the last game will be on Sunday, giving us two off days between the end of the LCS and the beginning of the WS. Oh, and if the WS goes 7 games? It will end on November 5th. Opening Day '09 was one week later than Opening Day '08. That had to do with the WBC but also the calendar. Opening Day is a Monday so there will be some years when it's later in April. You can't start in March after all (OD '08 was March 31st). So for the next few years Opening Day will be just a little later than I prefer, but that doesn't mean the playoffs have to last this late into the year.
Part of what makes baseball so difficult is the fact that it's a marathon. Teams sometimes go 20 games without an offday, traveling from place to place overnight between series. But for some reason, several years ago, the playoffs became a bit more leisurely. Remember when a 7 game series went like this: two games, travel day, three games, travel day, two games? I miss those days. Now there are off days all over the place. The Twins and Yankees had a day off between games 1 and 2 of the ALDS even though both games were in NY. Both the ALCS and NLCS had an off day between games 4 and 5 despite the fact that there is a travel day between games 5 and 6.
I know it's about television and ratings and all that, but it's ridiculous. Maybe in the years when the season starts on April 1st it wouldn't be as noticable, but we already lost a week at the beginning of the season. Every night we have to hear about the freezing weather well duh, it's almost November.
Maybe I only prefer it because I'm pretty die hard, but the postseason should just be a blitz of baseball. Multiple games every single day until the World Series. It should be wall-to-wall baseball. Not off days so that each game in the LCS can be a prime time event.
Ok, so that's my rant, and it really has little to do with tonight's game, but really what is there to say. John Lackey will try to keep the Angels from being eliminated so they can go back to New York and lose there, only with bonus coverage of Kate Hudson looking on adoringly from the stands and reverent speak about new Yankee Stadium's first time going to the world series, and maybe some talk of destiny or some such. And if they go back to NY where it's cold so we'll get to hear all about how cold it is this time of year again, and maybe some more about Derek Jeter having being all sneezy.