Try To Remember: No Games In November

In 1965, Sandy Koufax declined to pitch the Opening game of the World Series because it was a Jewish high holiday. That was October 6th.

Next year, the World Series will still be a month away on October 6th.

This is a travesty. And it's killing baseball.

Baseball teams slog through a season of 162 games contested in the hopeful days of spring and the dog days of summer. The best clubs tame the tiger through the heat to compete for the championship as the leaves begin to turn. 

And then, with all the chips on the table, the game changes dramatically. Night games amid frost and flurries in Cleveland and Boston and Chicago* and Denver leave fans shivering in parkas and ski hats. 

*Hypothetically

It ceases to be about the best teams, but about the best foul weather teams. Who's got the hot hands when their hands are cold.

It's football weather, is what it is. Which might explain why America slumbers through the World Series. They're heavy into the pigskin season and by November that's what it feels like. For many Americans, baseball season ends when the kids return to school.

Ski areas know that business booms, not when it snows on the mountain, but when it snows in people's backyards.

For baseball, that formula is death.