John J, I’ve been telling my 6-yr-old son that the games start after 830pm because these are games even the people in California want to watch so they can’t be started at our usual 7pm time. But it’s not making anyone around my house feel any better about it — that a kid who loved baseball and got deeply involved in it all year can’t watch the World Series because it’s on too late.

My one consolation: Naturally, all the kids at school want Obama. But when I told him yesterday that we would have been able to watch an inning or two tonight but Obama bought commercial time so the game is starting too late, he got pretty annoyed at The One. If all of Obama’s support is this thin, McCain’s got a real shot.

Who, after all, would want to watch the late innings of what could be the deciding game of the Fall Classic if you could watch Barack lecture us about Social Justice, Economic Justice, Redistributive Change, 95 percent gobbledygook tax relief for non-taxpayers, etc.

Hypothetical: If the LATimes released the Khalidi tape and ABC put it on up against Obama’s speech, what do you figure would get higher ratings?