One would assume the home team would be responsible for the setting the game time.
After all, the home team wants to make sure things are stacked in its favor.
Leave it to Chicago Cubs Manager Joe Maddon to complain about playing the Washington Nationals at 1:20 p.m. Monday after trip back from Arizona on Sunday. The Cubs lost to 4-3 to the Diamondbacks on Sunday in a game that started at 3:10 p.m. Central and lasted two hours and 31 minutes.
The Cubs arrived at home at approximately 11 p.m. Sunday and canceled batting practice.
" I don't understand why the Memorial [Day] game has to be played during the day," Maddon said Monday before taking on the Nationals. "There's fireworks and stuff [you can do at night].
"This whole week we play at different times. It's an awkward schedule."
The Cubs host the Nationals at 6:05 p.m. today and 7:05 p.m. Wednesday. They host Kansas City at 3:05 p.m. Friday and 6:15 p.m. Saturday.
"Quite frankly, to play a day game two time zones away and then come back [to] another one the next day ... it's tough," Maddon said. "It's not easy, but we're not going to make excuses."
Major League Baseball issued a statement Monday: "The season schedule represents one of the toughest exercises by MLB every year. The league does its best to accommodate every club while managing tight time frames. Certainly this means teams have to deal with inconvenience from long overnight road trips."
Before 1988, when Wrigley Field did not have lights, Maddon's anger may have been understandable. Previous managers had their issues when the Cubs couldn't play at night or were restricted in the number of night games they could play.
The Cubs are restricted, by city ordinance, to 43 night games per season. Still, one has to wonder why the Cubs and/or Major League Baseball couldn't work to make sure home game times are stacked in their favor. The league average is 54 night games per team.
"This is something we really need to look in the future," Maddon said, "to really homogenize this thing a little bit more. I think routine is really important to us."
Reporters only
After the Golden State Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets 110-106 in Game 1 of the NBA's Western Conference finals Tuesday, Golden State guard Stephen Curry brought his daughter Riley to the postgame news conference.
During the press conference, Curry held his daughter Riley, who yawned and later scurried under the table.
While the scene might be cute to some people, it didn't sit well with NBA Hall of Famer and Turner Sports analyst Charles Barkley.
"Reporters are there trying to do their job," Barkley said. "I don't think it's a big deal, but I would prefer [players] not bring their kids. Reporters are trying to their job."
As a player and a commentator, Barkley was always opinionated. But now he's on the side of the media.
Free Brady
New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft announced last week he is going to accept the punishment -- a $1 million fine and losing a first-round draft pick in 2016 and fourth-round pick in 2017 -- the NFL handed down last week in the Deflate-gate scandal.
The Boston Globe reported approximately 150 fans headed to Foxborough, Mass., to demand the NFL "free" Patriots quarterback Tom Brady from the four-game suspension he was given for his role in the Patriots having under-inflated balls for last season's AFC Championship Game.
The rally was advertised on Facebook as "a peaceful rally to protest the unjust football arrest of half God half man Tom Brady."
Two Patriots-loving newlyweds at the rally said they would postpone their honeymoon until Brady's punishment was repealed.
Nothing resumes until Brady's back.
Sports quiz
What was Joe Maddon's career record at manager of the Tampa Bay Rays?
Answer
754-705
Sports on 05/26/2015