There are few sports issues that evoke stronger sentiment than this week’s topic. Granted, a lot of you are finding this a yearly theme.

In a nutshell, it’s time to schedule baseball World Series games when the kids are awake and can watch them.

Yes, I know that the so-called prime-time entertainment on television brings in the most dollars. My problem with all this late night stuff is the number of kids, who are sound asleep, who miss most, if not all, of the action. This year, the West Coast crowd got a bit of a break with Colorado playing and games starting at 5:30 p.m. or so, western time.

A good place to start this revision might be weekend coverage. In my house, we have a 7-year-old, who is just starting to cut his teeth on this game.

Nate’s favorite player is Manny Ramirez. But let’s face it. At 8:30, it’s is a little late for championship baseball to be starting, and most games are at least three-plus hours.

Gone are the times when baseball was a predominantly daytime game. Gone, too, are the days when most of the baseball playoffs were played during the daylight hours.

I have many fond memories as far back as 1978 when significant postseason baseball games were played during the daylight hours.

I remember the 1978 one-game playoff between the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox like it was yesterday.

I was teaching high school English at Penquis Valley High School in Milo, and I was also the boys basketball coach.

That infamous daytime affair began before school got out, and we were allowed to have radios in our classrooms to keep abreast of the proceedings.

What a treat it was to have a building filled with the sounds of Red Sox baseball.

After my daytime duties were completed, I raced to my Ohio Street home in Bangor just in time to see New York’s Bucky Dent hit a popup into the left-field screen off Boston’s Mike Torrez, who pitched the previous season for the Yankees. The Yanks were off to the playoffs, while the Sox were on their way home.

I have many fond memories of daytime World Series games, played in the afternoon during the week. What a treat it was to lug my little transistor radio to school and hide it in my desk to get updates on the Fall Classic.

Some teachers were equally interested in baseball, and they allowed the games to be the subject matter for the day.

In 1967, the Red Sox returned to the Series after a 21-year absence. I was a sophomore in high school at the time, and some of the action was broadcast over the public address system at the recently opened Bangor High School on outer Broadway in the Queen City. The school officially opened in 1965.

Now, that, dear readers, was quite a treat.

Not so in 2007, a year that finds the Sox returning to baseball’s greatest stage for the second time in four years, and winning it all – again.

This year, our oldest son Scott was fortunate enough to snatch two tickets for Game 1 in Boston. In all my years with Scott, I have never seen him happier. I was equally delighted to receive text messages and calls from the bleachers at Fenway.

With Carl Yastrzemski throwing out the first pitch, the stage was set for the time of his life.

Yes, let’s give the game back to the kids. To heck with the advertising dollars. Baseball this time of the year belongs to everyone, and it’s not much fun to catch highlights the morning after such monumental games.

30-Second Time Out

Best wishes go out from this corner to former Bangor High School star running back Jimmy Nelson, who is in his Orono home recovering from knee surgery.

Old No. 32 took his BHS talents to the University of Cincinnati, where he captained the football squad and played defensive back.

BDN columnist Ron Brown, a retired high school basketball coach, can be reached at bdnsports@bangordailynews.net