Hurd: Have trouble sleeping? Watch playoff baseball

Isn’t the Convention on Psychotropic Substances coming up?

After all, what’s better? Counting sheep ‘til the wee hours? Or watching an 11-inning thriller stretch out so long and move at such a pace that it would make the Slowskys look like Usain Bolt. That contest: a 9-8 Tampa Bay Rays win over the Boston Red Sox in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series ended at 1:49 a.m. (EST). Think about that. All the Tampa-area sports bars had kicked out their patrons by that time.

Time of game: 5 hours, 22 minutes. Average time between pitches: 46 seconds.

Still, not convinced that this is an insomniac’s dream? Well, consider that five days later, baseball served up one of the great comebacks in any professional sport. The Red Sox overcame a seven-run deficit with seven outs to go and staved off elimination to force Saturday’s Game 6.

The final pitch was served up at 12:18 a.m., which also happened to be the exact same time the Red Sox were last eliminated from a league championship series.

So you see, there are things to keep you happily occupied in the middle of the night — in October anyway. For the other 11 months a year, you’re on your own.