I should be sleeping...

After years of no playoffs, and then one year with a ridiculously quick playoff exit, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies are making a deep playoff run this year, and stand one victory away from their first World Series apperance since 1993. My head and my heart are loving this, and going absolutely nuts right now.

The rest of my body, however, is not so thrilled. The playoffs are not an easy time of year to be an East Coast baseball fan. You see, during the regular season, baseball games typically start at no later than 7:30 pm in the time zone that they are being played. And, due to the way the schedule is set up, eastern teams like the Phillies play about 90% of their games in the Eastern and Central time zones, which means you'll very rarely see a game start much later than 8. And on those rare West Coast swings, none of which occur in the last month of the season, the reality is that each game is only one out of 162, so it's pretty easy to go to bed before or shortly after the 10/10:30 pm EST start time. Couple that with the fact that a regular season 9 inning baseball game typically runs not much more than 3-3 1/4 hours, and it's not at all difficult or physically demanding to be a fan during the regular season.

The playoffs, however, are a different animal. And even in the division series, the Phillies managed to dodge some of this, because there's was not perceived as having the national draw of some of the other series, and thus they were relegated to afternoon/early evening start times. Now that we've hit the NLCS, however, they've got the primetime games. And at this stage of the game, there's a clear national following, and thus the typical 7-7:30 EST start times go out the window in favor of 8:30, which allows the West Coasters a chance to get home (or to the stadium) from work prior to the first pitch. When you couple that with the fact that, due to extended TV intrusions, more micromanaging of the pitching staffs, and a more generally deliberate pace of the game, postseason games tend to last at least a half hour or more longer than their regular season counterparts, it can be a real beast to be both a fan and a productive member of the American workforce.

Take last night, for example. The game started at 8:22. I relocated my viewing location from my basement to my bed at around 9:30. At around 10:30 (about the 6th inning), I became frustrated and turned the game off, thinking I would just go to sleep at this point. But the fan in me took over shortly thereafter, and I followed the game through to its exciting Phillies victory, which occurred after midnight. At that point, all jacked up from the outcome of the game, I exchanged some internet correspondence with some friends of mine whom I knew were in the same condition, and then I finally turned in for maybe 5 hours of sleep prior to the sounding of my alarm. Fortunately I have a conveniently located soda machine at work!

If the Phillies are to win this series, I really need them to do so by winning tomorrow night's game, so I have plenty of time to rest up for the World Series!