For the last three seasons, Major League Baseball has scheduled all of its final-day games at (approximately) the same time, within a few minutes of 3 p.m. Eastern time. This is done so that if there are postseason spots yet to be decided on that day, no West Coast team would have an advantage over an East Coast team whose game was over before they’d ordinarily start on the West Coast.
That wasn’t the case this year as all the postseason positions were decided before Sunday’s games. So Sunday was a day of pure baseball entertainment, played in good weather everywhere — and that’s not always a given in early October.