In the Northeast and Midwest, a four-day difference in Autumn can indeed mean a major difference in the weather. One of these years, the World Series will be played in Boston, New York, Cleveland, Chicago, Minnesota (after their new open-air stadium opens) and be struck by a freak snowstorm or heavy rains causing massive delays like what happened in Cleveland this year in early April.

Obviously, poor weather occurs in late October as well, but pushing the Fall Classic into November only increases the possibility of poor weather delaying the Classic's finish and ensures that even without snow or rain, fans who attened will be uncomfortable, particularly those with children.

Now, there is always a dither and dather that these kinds of moves are made for the ratings. Well, football gets big ratings for a lot of reasons other than the start times of its games, however, it is worth noting that the AFC Championship, NFC Championship and Super Bowl are all played in the early or late afternoon and garner monster ratings. In fact the one area where the NFL has been hurt in recent years, ratings wise, is Monday Night Football, which is the football telecast that starts the latest 9:15 EST.

And slightly off-topic, the NBA Finals generally out-drew the World Series, tv ratings-wise, during the Jordan era, the NBA fell behind, but not by very much, in the early 2000's during the Lakers run, beginning with the lowest-rated NBA Finals since the 70's, Spurs-Nets in 2003, the NBA Finals fell far behind the World Series, save for a brief bump with a Lakers appearance in the 04 Finals.

And finally, if ratings for the World Series continue to stay flat or trend downward (which they are), why not try a Sunday World Series start at 6 instead of 8:30, particularly if West Coast teams aren't involved?