Baseball's Shameful Start Time

Tonight begins game two of the World Series. The first pitch will be sometime after eight o'clock.  In this case Major League Baseball has some excuse. Boston is on the East Coast, LA is on the West, a full three hours behind.  Even so, MLB could start tonight's game at 7 PM if they really wanted to. But they don't. Prime Time (8 PM to 11 PM for all you Euros out there) is where the big TV money is. The last day World Series game was played in 1987.

This has been baseball's standard operating procedure for 30 years now and it's a yuuge problem. How are kids supposed to watch the World Series when the first pitch happens right around bedtime?

Back when baseball was the National Pastime, teachers would have radios in the classroom, later TVs. Kids could listen to the game while they did classwork. The more devilish teachers would use the game as a carrot to get all the work done before the first pitch. 

Baseball was meant to be played outdoors in the sunshine, it's a very important part of the game*. 'Nice day for a ballgame, let's play two!'

This very famous homerun happened after midnight:

In this way, baseball lost a generation of fans, mine own. Growing up and as a young man, we were among the only Gen-Xrs we knew who liked baseball. It's pretty hard to get into the World Series when you're asleep.

*Is this a thing in Futball? Euros opine in the comments.
** Below, the alternate, hometown call: