Maui – The Miniseries, Part V

As I type this, the Rockies lead the Red Sox 1-0 in the top of the third inning of the 2007 World Series' second game.

It's 3:15 PM, Hawaiian time.

Before I reached this savage land of alcohol served from floating bars in the pool, I thought that early-in-the-day sports would be one of the best things about being out here.

How wrong I was.

People are still at work and kids are still in school. I watched most of yesterday's World Series game while Jalen took his mid-afternoon nap. It wasn't "convenient"…it was creepy. Even with the usual eight-hour nationally televised playoff game rules in play, the final out came before sundown.

Back on Sunday, the first NFL games came on the air at 7:00 AM! I cracked a Sam Adams and enjoyed a leftover slice just as the Patriots and Dolphins were kicking off.

At 7:00 AM!

Look, we can all agree that East Coast fans have it the worst. National games in prime time often don't end until 1:00 AM or later, while they have no choice but to ignore any team that plays in the two leftmost time zones of the contiguous 48 states. Sure, they're rewarded with 24/7 coverage of their teams, good or bad, on the ESPN family of networks, but still…

Which is why – to quote the late Negro poet Tupac Shakur – "the West Side is the best side".

We get the shoved-down-our-throats news and notes of all teams from such far-off outposts as New York, Philadelphia and Boston, plus we can catch the games from teams who finish their games just as the 2:00 AM, (11:00 PM PDT) Sportscenter is coming on the air. It's the best of all worlds, kids.

And, that's why Hawaii should have their statehood revoked.

If you want to follow your favorite baseball team out here, you'll need $169 for the MLB Extra Innings package and a boss who'll let you leave early if you want to watch a Yankees home game start at 1:35 PM local Island time during the week. Sure, you can DVR it, but good luck avoiding the score for five or six hours.

If you want to watch some pro football, you'll have to curtail your Saturday night drinking so you're sober enough to watch the kickoff. If you'd rather live dangerously, you can still stay out late, but you're running the risk of stumbling in the front door at 5:00 AM Sunday morning only to find Emmitt Smith's slaughtering of syntax on your plasma screen as ESPN's NFL Gameday is starting.

This is a beautiful place…but, backwards in so many, many ways.