• From a television standpoint, what is the best news about the baseball playoffs that begin next week?

Start times are moving up for the World Series and league championship series. For the first time in 38 years, weeknight World Series games will start before 8 p.m. (7:57 p.m., to be exact) -- about 40 minutes earlier than past years. The Saturday World Series game also will start at 7:57 p.m. and the Sunday game at 8:20 p.m.

So, at last, grade-school students in the East actually might be able to watch an entire World Series game. Last year's Philadelphia-Tampa Bay series averaged 3 hours, 16 minutes, ending after many folks were asleep.

And I don't want to hear a peep from people on the West Coast griping that World Series games are starting before 5 p.m. PDT. For years, folks in the East had to sacrifice sleep so Monday Night Football didn't start before West Coasters got home from work. So deal with it, West Coasters -- you've been catered to for years.

Meanwhile, MLB suggested a weekend afternoon World Series game, but Fox declined. ``What I know, from our research people, is that if we played Saturday afternoon, viewership would be 30 percent lower,'' Fox Sports president Ed Goren said. ``And there would be an economic impact to that.''

Fox's weekday [and Saturday] American League Championship Series games also will start earlier, at 7:57 p.m., and TBS' NLCS games will start at 8:07 p.m. TBS also has all the first-round games, and those times will be similar to last year, including some 9:30 p.m. starts in Los Angeles and Anaheim.