The World Series came to its less-than-stunning conclusion last week when the New York Yankees unceremoniously disposed of the cross-town rival Mets, four games to one.

This was the Bronx Bombers¹ fourth title in five years and their 26th overall. Well, whoop dee freakin¹ doo.

There is something wrong with the World Series today, and it does not lie only with the Yankees winning and the buying of another title by a big-market club. No, it is more fundamental than that.

The starting and finishing times for the World Series are ridiculous. On the East Coast, the games begin any time between 8 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. and don¹t finish until well after midnight.

Over here it is not so bad, with everything three hours earlier, but for the area where the teams are actually located, it is amazingly late.

Now, for people like us, college students who are used to late nights and weird time schedules, ending a game after midnight is no biggee. The problem with this game schedule is for the youngsters. What are the children to do?

Youngsters can¹t stay up past midnight watching baseball. I mean, elementary school students need their rest and have bedtimes well before the game is over because they must be at school the next day. They can¹t, or at least shouldn¹t, be staying up until the next day.

That includes the many watching the games on television. What about those who actually make it to a game? Say a contest ends at 12:30 a.m. After the drive home and everything, it would be 2 a.m. before Junior hits the sack.

Yeah, give a 9-year-old five hours of sleep, I¹m sure he¹ll be bright-eyed and bushy-tailed the next day, ready to learn.

Baseball is killing itself in this aspect. It isn¹t appealing to youth. It does not affect the children out here so much, but the young Yankees and Mets fans¹ only memories of the game will come from ³Sports Center² the next day.

I think that baseball should go back to the way it was and have World Series games start in the afternoon. This is the way it was for many years, well before lighted stadiums made nighttime games possible and fat television contracts dictated which direction the institutions should take.

Yes, children had school and adults had work during the games, but certain things would mysteriously take place when the World Series came about.

School kids would come down with some sort of cold the day of a game. Parents with jobs would all of a sudden have some family matters to take care of at home just before the time of the first pitch.

In other words, children would ditch and working people take the day off from their jobs to head to the ball park or to the television or radio to catch the game.

If that was not the case, school kids and workers would sneak in radios to quietly listen to the action transpiring somewhere on a magical diamond.

Some schools and work places would go as far as to broadcast the World Series itself over intercoms. This is how big the Series was. It was practically a national holiday.

Am I advocating children skipping school and adults leaving work to watch a game? Yes I am. Am I suggesting that the World Series should sit right next to math and history at school and to meetings and clients in the work place? Again, yes.

The World Series is tradition. It is as American as apple pie. Why must these traditions be smothered?

Baseball needs to look at itself in the mirror and realize what it is doing to itself and its fan base. The Series used to be something so special that the nation would shut down just to watch. Now sleepy-heads with things to do the next day fall off to dreamland, only to witness special memories on the next day¹s highlight show.